Yes, it's horrible. So to do business in the EU, not only do you have to be concerned with the country you're dealing with, but you're also responsible for *their* actions? "Total political crap" is right.
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Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month Amid Legal Battle With European Regulators
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What you are discussing is a valid discussion.. and is unique and particular to the EU. Where else in the world do you have a country telling any other country what tax laws they're allowed to enact, or tax breaks to give. Now... you have countries trying to impose Tariffs and Duties in an attempt to accomplish some of the goals that you touched upon... but that's a different argument for a different day.
The important point I think is that companies should not have to be political experts and tax law experts... and decide if they think any current law in any country could later be changed. If a company is told by country X that if they choose to do business there they will have tax rate Y... they need to reasonably be able to rely on that. They make important, and long term decisions based on those factors. And it erodes trust. Do you think Apple, going forward, is gong to be as likely to want to do business in any EU country, if it can at all be avoided?
No rules were changed. I find it hard to comprehend that Apple would not have had lawyers checking the legality of the deal being offered by Ireland.
And no, you do not have to buy future Apple products to fund this avoidance scam.
Your viewpoint is naive at best. Apple with its retinue of lawyers and tax advisors was far from being an innocent bystander in these proceedings. This was a smart deal it brokered with the Irish government, which turned out to not be that smart after all.
Just as in Norway, if the state finds you underpaid tax, regardless of who was at fault, you have to pay the shortfall. No different for Apple. Spare us the ingenuous wow.
I was going to respond to your statement... as I love thoughtful conversation. Right up until you said avoidance scam.
Apple knew. It just gambled on the strength of its own team's advice. Should have got a better team, is all.
Apple didn't do anything illegal. Ireland did. If you expect every company to investigate how their country deals with the EU, that's going to be a mess.
What are you on about? Big corporations must pay taxes like everyone else, they are not exempt from that no matter what laws they try to twist! And I don’t see why the people of Europe should pay for a Apples tax shortfall and give money to Ireland, whilst they launder billions between them!
Again., I find it hard to believe that Apple would not know the EU tax laws. Probably expected to get a slap on the wrist when it all came out in the wash.
Apple doing everything according to the tax deals and Ireland not wanting the money is totally irrelevant from the point of view of the appeal. It's the deals themselves which have been found to be illegal state aids and an EU member state cannot give state aids except in very specific cases, no matter what it wants.
Basically to win the appeal Apple/Ireland have to demonstrate the tax deals were not classifiable as state aid.
It's called Due Diligence.
Apple are not being fined. They are being told to pay their unpaid taxes.
What unpaid taxes? They paid the legal amount before this. If the EU wants to force Ireland to change the taxes, that's fine, but it can't apply to previous years.
So you blame the corporations? They got a massive incentive (INVITE) to do business in ireland by the government. Do you think they would have gone to Ireland otherwise? Nope. Sorry. The reason a lot of these large corporations HQ their EU business there is EXACTLY because the government gave them special treatment. Blame the Government, they are the one's to blame.
Let say you are right. Now its untrue 90% of taxes are used in such inefficient manner, but lets yup in this case 90% of the billions of dollars Apple pays in back taxes will be wasted, so only 10% gets used for public good. Whats the alternative? Leave it with Apple? Would they be doing public good that exceeds the 10% of public good? Would they funding hospitals, publicly accessible services, schools with that extra billions?
You can point to the NHS or a public run institution and mock it because we have insight into their operations. What is Apple doing internally that is so good for the public and not completely self serving? Everything you see from companies like Apple is controlled, its image is completely molded by its advertising and messaging. For some reason, this is "good". Public institutions are by their very nature "public", and in reaction we sit and point out its inefficiencies. Ironic no?
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None of these companies would ever come to Norway. They already tried to broker their special deals here, and guess what? The government said NO. So some of the companies rather built datacenters in Sweden, which is a couple of hours drive away.
The government is responsible for the country, it's citizens, and following laws and regulations it has made and agreed to. If the government said "NO SPECIAL TREATMENT" then guess what, Apple would have NEVER gone to Ireland, and that's a fact...
And by the way, it's not just Apple having good "deals" with the Irish government. ALL of these big multinational companies that have EU HQ's there have more or less EXACTLY the same deals (Dell, Google, etc)... So how was all of this Apple's lawyers doing? When many of the other companies was present in Ireland WAY before Apple?
Do you really think ALL these companies simply love Ireland, and ALL of them decided to make their EU HQ there because of the sunny weather? ... No. It's because of the governments invitations and special treatment!
First point.
Ignorance of the law is not a defence in most countries. A woman was fined $500 for bringing an apple she got on board a plane when she flew into the USA. She didn't know the laws.
Apple are not expected to know the intricacies of tax laws in all countries. That is why they are expected to employ tax experts to provide this information. It's called Due Diligence.
Second point. No tax laws were changed after the sweetheart deal Apple struck with the Irish government.
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Ignorance of the law is not a defence in most countries. A woman was fined $500 for bringing an apple she got on board a plane when she flew into the USA. She didn't know the laws.
Apple are not expected to know the intricacies of tax laws in all countries. That is why they are expected to employ tax experts to provide this information. It's called Due Diligence.
Second point. No tax laws were changed after the sweetheart deal Apple struck with the Irish government.
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Again, the Irish government offered Apple a deal it was not legally entitled to offer under the existing EU legislation at the time the deal was made.
There's no ignorance of the law here. This is about Apple's taxes paid to Ireland, not the EU. Maybe Apple knew Ireland was breaking the law, we don't know. But it's Ireland's fault for breaking the law. Apple hasn't violated anything, and they wouldn't want to, so yes, the laws must've changed on them. Lastly, after all this, why is Ireland collecting the revenue and not being fined?
Sounds self-contradictory. Anyway, that's not how the system should work. Huge barriers to entry that way in the form of legal fees, and some complementary overhead on the EU's side.
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Under the probably false "10%" assumption, yes, creating good jobs to build tech with 100% of that. And lots of Apple's products are utilities, not time-wasting crap like Facebook's. But hey, at least the EU isn't sending that money to Israel like we are in the US.
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Political crap is the deal Ireland signed with Apple to allow them to pay 0.1% tax when official rate is 15%
Apple puts something like 60% of its non US profits through Ireland
What exactly is your point here? They are ALL in it together. All of them. The special treatment Apple and the other large multinationals got went over and above the deals ordinary businesses can hope to get. And all in breach of EU regulations.
Your first sentence in the quotation above rather undermines your earlier point that Apple is an innocent party to all of this.
No, Ireland does not want the money, they already got that money from us, the other member states of the union. Ireland has been a net receiver for many years, about a billion € a year.
Without the sweet deal with Apple (and others) they probably would have been a net payer, instead of receiver. The government of Ireland know that if this does not go their way, EU might want money back from Ireland, and they will for sure have to pay more to the EU while risking jobs as these multinationals will no longer use Ireland as EU HQ.
I for one applaud this, Apple has avoided tax in all other EU member states for decades by moving it through Ireland, now that is coming to an end. If no other member state is willing to risk the same treatment as Ireland, Apple will have to pay their due taxes in all member states, which is absolutely right.
Ireland should be fined for their actions and "special deals". Why? Because they have created a severe competitive advantage by doing this against all their neighbouring EU countries. The chances are that most of these companies would not have gone to Ireland unless they were offered these "too good to be true" deals. And that is unfair competitive advantage, which Ireland acquired by breaking the EU laws.
But the EU is BS anyway. Not Europe, the region, but EU, the corrupt and complete BS bureacratical organization that was supposed to be "good". Glad my country never joined that crap.
Sure!I wonder how this money will be spent once it's turned over. I'm sure some worthy cause.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/apr/22/council-of-europe-members-suspected-of-corruption-inquiry-reveals
Dear Tim, as you will be aware, the problem often is not that tax avoidance is illegal, the problem is that it is legal. In this case, Ireland may have overstepped from legal to illegal, but even if Apple & Ireland win the case, it is still amoral to avoid taxes. You are doing business based on all kinds of services by governments (not in the least the fair judiciary systems you are now using, but also education, infrastructure, etc.). Avoiding taxes makes you an amoral free rider. Pay your fair share and do not complain.
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The "Council of Europe" has nothing to do with the EU. It is a separate human rights organisation.
The Guardian said: