Apple Hits Back at EU Law in Court

[surferfb]

I'm not sure if you realize how big of a deal illegal staid aid and taxation standards are in the EU system of treaties. US states seem to have much more freedom when it comes to the taxation of corporations or individuals. In the EU on the other hand there are rules and minimum standards how taxation and state aid should work. Member countries can't give subsidies to individual corporations as they like and usually even need to get approval upfront from the commission before they introduce such measures. One of the Commissions major responsibilities is to enforce these rules.
The tax arrangements Apple used were individually negotiated and only available to Apple at the time.

It wasn't "for an individual corporation." The structure itself was available to any multinational, and many used variants of it. Apple’s specific ruling wasn’t unique in principle it simply applied the same tax logic that others could have sought.

Again, that’s like saying “my coworker got the day off and I didn’t get the day off so the day off was only available for my coworker” without noting I didn’t ask for the day off and it would have been given to me had I asked. The arrangement was available to any company that wanted to use it.

The highest court looked at the evidence and decided, that the ruling by the Irish tax authorities effectively constituted a subsidy given to Apple.

And the second highest court looked at it and said it wasn’t. Tax experts were SHOCKED the second highest court's ruling was overturned. They said the EUCJ ruling "totally contradicted precedent" and "made a mess of case law" and It clearly wasn’t the open and shut case you and @Sophisticatednut claim it is.

And none of that changes the fact that Ireland wasn’t entitled to the tax and the tax was not owed under Irish law. Had Apple known that Brussels would reinterpret decades-old tax rulings through competition law, something no one had ever done before, just because a politically ambitious Commissioner wanted to make a name for herself by getting "big tech" and expand her own powers to include taxation, those profits would never have been booked in Ireland in the first place; they would have been booked in the US, where they belonged.

Remember, Ireland’s own authorities confirmed the profits weren’t taxable under Irish law, which is why this case was so extraordinary! It effectively redefined what "selective advantage" means by ignoring national tax law entirely.

This is all completely logical and not "insane" at all. It might look strange when you are used to how things work in other parts of the world. Governments arguing with the Commission about state aid is just another Monday here in the EU. This case is only special because the amount recovered is extraordinarily large and the affected company a household name.

Interesting how when Apple uses the same structure countless others could have, it’s suddenly a “special deal.” But when the EU retroactively re-writes decades-old tax rulings through competition law in a case the relevant experts said "totally contradicts precedent", "makes a mess of case law", "stretches legal boundaries", "creates uncertainty for companies operating within the EU", and "risks undermining investor confidence because it retroactively reinterprets lawful tax rulings" that's not insane, it's "just another Monday."

Ok, done for real now.

 

[amartinez1660]

Honestly, it's high time Apple just buck up and stop offering the services that EU deemed problematic. The iPhone does not need to be the same iPhone throughout the world. There is nothing wrong with offering a lesser, more expensive product just for EU if they feel (correctly) that the EU targets them unfairly.

Rather than wasting resources challenging a law (in a region where the lawmakers control the courts), Apple can just offer iPhones and other products with reduced service sets in the EU, and charge higher prices for the extra resources the EU made them put in.

And like usual, if Apple sets a trend, others will likely follow. Everyone will be happy.

I’m right behind ya on this sentiment… it’s been enough.
Time to just respect EU’s/UK’s/etc people decisions.

Want an open App Store? Give it to them.
Third party open and unfiltered access to NFC/FaceID/HomeApp? Give the access.
That the government has to have a backdoor? Open the back doors full width.
That iCloud needs to be surveillance compatible? Give them the access points.
The win-win? Avoid the darn worldwide fines, avoid the litigation, and avoid upsetting their citizens.

The only thing to take care of here is to make sure that none of that bleeds to places where people don’t really want those.
Else, it’s not like the EU and Co will eventually fold… fighting this is quite futile.