I don't remember the last time I set up shame offices in various countries and routed profits from one country to another to exploit a lower tax rate.
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Apple Must Repay $14.5 Billion in Back Taxes, EU Commission Rules
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I don't remember the last time I set up shame offices in various countries and routed profits from one country to another to exploit a lower tax rate.
But Apple is cheating. Under EU law, member states are not allowed to make tax deals with companies to reduce their taxes. Ireland's tax is 12%, Apple is paying 1% because they made a deal. That is illegal under EU law.
a) The EU is largely a monetary organization. There are rules relating to the flow of money.
b) The primary issues the UK had were immigration policy and being forced to take in Syrian refugees. Nothing to do with monetary policy.
So if the federal government decides that a state's income tax rate is too low, everybody in that state should have to pay back taxes from the year that rate was introduced through the present day. Makes perfect sense.
And "feelings" shouldn't play a role in this. Doesn't matter if it's a locally owned small business or an evil big bad company that wants to destroy the world. A business is a business, and they shouldn't be treated differently.
Apple didn't make any special 'deals' with Ireland - they're using the standard Ireland tax.
Apple is still paying 12% - just not on their whole profit. Most of their profit is untaxable through Irish loopholes. These are the same 'loopholes' that Google and many other companies use. It's not an Apple only thing.
Ireland is NOT part of the UK and this investigation and decision had nothing to do with Brexit. Northern Ireland is part of the UK and is not the country that was investigated. Think of it like America and Canada.
EU is a common or internal economic union, a single market, among other things. It's a bigger economy than USA.
To be a member of the union, there are certain rules that has to apply. One is, open taxation. Every country has to set their corporate tax rate openly, and publish it to all EU member states. All exceptions need to be published too, in order to other members to value are the exceptions breaking any common rules.
Irland made secretly this deal with Apple. Ireland has done similar deals with other companies too. Swedish Ikea is there also under investigation. Because taxation was not made under the published tax schema, it has been considered as a violation of EU common rules.
EU is now impelling Ireland to tax Apple. If they don't, there's going to be another EU vs Ireland legal case and EU will set a penalty to Ireland. If Ireland taxes Apple, there's going to be Apple vs Ireland case later - in some form. What EU wants is a fair market; what has been agreed, will be full filled and rule breakers are forced to fix the problem or they will be punished.
UK made Brexit, because they didn't want to belong in the trade union any more. They have all the haggish and whiskey they can consume anyway, so buzz off EU and their single market. On contrary, US is trying to make TTIP with EU to have similar free access to EU market and vice versa.
To be a member of the union, there are certain rules that has to apply. One is, open taxation. Every country has to set their corporate tax rate openly, and publish it to all EU member states. All exceptions need to be published too, in order to other members to value are the exceptions breaking any common rules.
Irland made secretly this deal with Apple. Ireland has done similar deals with other companies too. Swedish Ikea is there also under investigation. Because taxation was not made under the published tax schema, it has been considered as a violation of EU common rules.
EU is now impelling Ireland to tax Apple. If they don't, there's going to be another EU vs Ireland legal case and EU will set a penalty to Ireland. If Ireland taxes Apple, there's going to be Apple vs Ireland case later - in some form. What EU wants is a fair market; what has been agreed, will be full filled and rule breakers are forced to fix the problem or they will be punished.
UK made Brexit, because they didn't want to belong in the trade union any more. They have all the haggish and whiskey they can consume anyway, so buzz off EU and their single market. On contrary, US is trying to make TTIP with EU to have similar free access to EU market and vice versa.
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This makes wonder. If Ireland was the one at fault for misrepresenting its own tax laws, and Apple followed the letter of the law believing they had done nothing wrong...
Would Apple be eligible to sue Ireland for the money back if they were made to pay up? I mean - even Ireland is appealing not to collect the money here. They literally don't want the money, because Ireland clearly doesn't want the ramifications that come with their tax deals become undone either.
Sure, you get some money now, but at what cost, if companies start leaving en-mass because it is no longer profitable to do business in Ireland?
Would Apple be eligible to sue Ireland for the money back if they were made to pay up? I mean - even Ireland is appealing not to collect the money here. They literally don't want the money, because Ireland clearly doesn't want the ramifications that come with their tax deals become undone either.
Sure, you get some money now, but at what cost, if companies start leaving en-mass because it is no longer profitable to do business in Ireland?
The level of mis understanding is palpable! The public of Europe are not happy with Corporations being given ILLEGAL tax law favours whilst they are facing increasing prices and austerity measures. And hence the EC under public pressure and knowing it has public support has investigated and is investigating these corporations including Apple, of which it HAS concluded DID BREAK THE LAW.
What is so hard to understand? Apple and Ireland broke the law, now the money will have to be paid back.
Your second paragraph contradicts your first one?
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In what world is knowingly and deliberately setting up fake company headquarters that don't exist to put all your global profits bar one country, America, through with the sole purpose of not paying any tax on it, a misrepresentation of the country your fake companies are set up in tax laws?
That's what they have done here. Apple really has zero argument here, they are in no way shape or form innocent, it's like saying Apple didn't realise it hat to pay taxes!
What Apple did was set up two companies based in Ireland, they then set up fake headquarters for these companies 'off shore' from Ireland, these headquarters existed ONLY on paper. They then put ALL international profits, bar American profits, through these Irish based companies to these fictitious headquarters because under their Irish deal they did not have to pay any taxes from money received by these fictitious headquarters. They then kept some tiny amounts of money in the actual Irish companies and paid taxes on that.
Hence they clearly breached state aid Euroean laws and regulations. Under EU laws, which Ireland AND Apple agree to by electing to operate in the EU state you cannot give clear special tax laws to one corporation that is at a clear disadvantage to others. Which is exactly what they did do.
Under EU law and state aid laws it is up to Ireland to retire early the correct taxes abiding by the EU laws and regulations.
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The original article has a quote that says:
It says that the benefit that Ireland granted to Apple is illegal, and that Ireland must recover the aid.
Where does it say that Apple broke the law?
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Scotland is making noises about breaking off from little England, and rejoining the EU. And when that happens, they'll be taking the Haggis, and the Whiskey, and the all the rest of the genius of "British cuisine" with them, leaving England with NOTHING. Do you hear me, England? YOU'LL BE GETTING NOTHING!
if the country itself approves it, i dont really see the point. I am against brexit but when i see EU doing these silly things, i feel brexit is actually a good thing for UK.
Ok, all I'll say is if Apple didn't break any laws, then tell me why are they appealing the decision?
Not really sure what you're on about TBH.
Chairs are not subject to Corporation Tax, whereas Corporations are.
Corporations must pay the corporation tax applicable.
Ireland's Corporation Tax is 12.5%, yet Apple paid significantly less than this (0.005-1%) thanks to their paper HQ.
So will the EU go after all the other multinational corporations that do this too?
Gotta get 'em all...
... just like Tim's Pokemans.
This will set precedent upon appeal outcome.
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Think of it like if you worked in another state than the state you live in. If you pay tax in the state you work in then you take that as a credit against your home state's requirement at filing time. If home state is less than work state then nothing to pay, otherwise tax home state gets the difference. The US treasury will get the difference to help pay for you kid's education, senior health programmers, VA funding, etc.
Very well said. No wonder UK left the EU. No bureau has the rightful place of dictating other country's terms of business(setup for disaster). I don't understand why any county would want to be dictated by any particular one group. That my friends, is how freedoms are snatched. (Hence our own federal government, less and less freedom here).
Not sure why your comment has received so many likes. You couldn't be further from the truth. "nothing to society"? I dare you to walk around your local city with your eyes open one day. You can thank Apple for even the Androids that people use today, because they were modeled after the.... ready? ... the 2007 iPhone, and even that iPhone OS looked better than many Android interfaces do today, and it was a heckuvalot easier to use than many of them, too.
I could go on about other tech that Apple helped to bring to the mainstream markets (USB, WiFi, touchpad). Did Apple invent those? No, but they did deliver them to the market with a very high standard and broad adoption while the PC marketplace was an absolute mess of old tech.
So you can focus on one thing — a low tax rate — and claim that Apple contributes nothing to society, or you can imagine a world where Apple didn't even exist. Just imagine that one... we'd all be using floppy disks and push-button phones still. Which would you want to live in?
What a load of nonsense. All member countries comprise the EU. Ireland is 'dictating' to itself. You do not sign up to a club, flout its rules and then claim "not my fault, guv". Apple should have hired better layers in hammering out the deal. Apple gambled and lost. That is all.
Thank you for explaining through example what the "Cult of Apple" is.
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Fortunately, by the time this issue makes its way through the courts Ireland will no longer be a part of the EU. Brexit, it seems, was an excellent idea. The EU doesn't work.