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Tim Cook to Receive Award From Irish Prime Minister Celebrating 40 Years of Apple Investment
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Sigh..... Stop using words you don't know the definition of.
They didn't avoid anything. They paid the exact amount of taxes that they were required to pay, no more and no less.
All companies manage their finances such that they pay the lowest possible taxes. Apple has plenty of company.
But even after minimizing their taxes, Apple still paid more than $10 billion in taxes last year, and $13 billion in 2018.
There’s a company here in the US called Amazon who paid zero in US federal income taxes in both 2017 and 2018. They did pay $1 billion in international taxes in 2018 though, so there’s that.
Maybe Apple could learn a thing or two from them!!!
Yes but the point is that the deal done with the Irish was by any standard utterly outrageous and totally indefensible. State sponsored and approved tax avoidance is still avoidance.
I don’t blame Apple especially for this but consistent amoral behaviour can’t be woke-washed away.
Minimizing taxes is immoral?
When was the last time you added in extra money on top of your actual taxes due? Never, I’d bet. Is not adding an extra 5 or 10% on top of your actual tax bill really immoral?
If you don’t like the tax laws, work to get them changed.
It seems people avoid the facts that don't fit a cool story.
Avoiding taxes within the tax law is perfectly legal and desirable for any decently run company and that is the main reason Apple is in Ireland and they can keep doing that for as long as they want.
What is not legal is avoiding taxes outside the law and that also happened.
If Ireland sets a 0.almostnothing % tax (the amount Apple payed) for every company that will be perfectly fine (going forward of course).
It was true that Apple didn’t pay there owed tax to Ireland, and as a member of the EU Ireland itself is under due diligence to follow EU tax regulations. The EU commission deemed they did not do that with Apple giving them an unfair advantage over its competition, stating it was illegal state aid.
So Ireland has to pay the money back, not Apple, but Ireland collects the money from Apple, I believe it’s around 12 billion US and is sat in a bank whilst the case is being investigated and dragged through the courts. But to me it was a clear breach of EU regulations.
If you research it their is all the information out there you need
EU does not really have any tax regulations. Taxation is in the domain of each member country.
What EU does have, are strict rules on state aid. The EU alleges that Ireland provided illegal state aid to Apple through a tax deal which was not open to every other Irish company. The percentage of tax was not the issue, only that it was not open to everyone, according to EU.
When a state is found guilty of having given illegal state aid they have to reverse whatever state aid they gave. In this case, it is about $13-14 billions in tax cuts to Apple which Ireland have to collect from Apple.
If Ireland looses the case, only Ireland gets the money. If Ireland wins the case, Apple gets the money.
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It is because you incorporated in Norway. You could have incorporated in Ireland to decrease your tax burden to 12.5%. It is not difficult and not expensive.
Apple also pays employment taxes in Norway, but you could have moved to Ireland to reduce this.
Your personal taxes is really irrelevant since corporate taxation and personal taxation are completely different.
Also during most of this time if Apple had withdrawn money from their Irish company they would have been taxed approx. 35% in the US.
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Paying more taxes than you need is immoral and stupid.
Avoiding taxes legally is a good thing and should be commended.
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Apple and Ireland have been doing this for 40 years now. Seems like the rest of the EU reacts real slow.
Also, Apple has moved some of their former Ireland companies to Jersey, which is outside EU.
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No, Apple pay a lot of taxes in the US, so much that they are the largest federal tax payer in the US.
All US sales are taxed in the US.
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In 2014-2016 Apple paid $1.5 billion in taxes to Ireland according to Apple.
In 2018 they paid €2.2 billion.
Ireland/Apple do not agree with the EU that anything unlawful happened. There is an appeal in progress; Apple may prevail, they may not.
But yes, tax evasion is certainly very different from tax minimization.
Ireland wants to have all the benefits of the unified market (EU) only without the obligations. So, they want VAT avoidance, no customs, low bureaucracy unified commerce and others but when it is time to pay it's share it looks elsewhere. Ireland works basically like an offshore paradise within the EU, it accepts 0% company taxation that is forbidden within EU
Didn't know people are getting awards for 40 years of tax evasion!
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Google's European HQ is in Zurich, Switzerland. Yet we didn't get assistant support until a few months back and Google still isn't selling its phones here. Apple, Google etc. don't set up HQs because they like the local population. They set up in places where taxes are low and they can get a lot of highly qualified workers (like in Zurich - the Federal Institute of Technology churns out top-notch engineers)
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Google's European HQ is in Zurich, Switzerland. Yet we didn't get assistant support until a few months back and Google still isn't selling its phones here. Apple, Google etc. don't set up HQs because they like the local population. They set up in places where taxes are low and they can get a lot of highly qualified workers (like in Zurich - the Federal Institute of Technology churns out top-notch engineers)
Exactly.
I live in the North East of England. I really wished we had some sort of devolved powers so that we could do similar. Too many jobs are and investment is in London and the South East.
The government after generations of facilitating the London growth, have started transporting some jobs to Manchester so that they can claim they are investing in the North. The North East is still 3 hours away from Manchester.
After Brexit, without a new agreement the UK will be a so called Third country and won't be able to sell anything in Europe without heavy WHO duties (which is why its a massive self-inflicted wound by the British). What you are saying here makes less than no sense.
Who is celebrating it? I think Apple should never have gotten away with this. I think they should pay back the tax. I think the Irish government probably did cut them some special deal illegally. There is no tax harmonsiation in the EU and each country has a veto on making changes like that, so no the EU will not close down on Ireland... or a half dozen other countries that do similar things but get less press because Apple are not involved (*cough* .... https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100115/why-luxembourg-considered-tax-haven.asp)
I mean be annoyed about this if you want but get your facts straight. There is not any VAT avoidance. All Apple products sold throughout Europe have always been subject to VAT in the local country. There was never any missing VAT in each local country in Europe. its about corporation tax - tax on profit. And I can tell you Ireland has as much beurocracy as anywhere else in Europe, and it has a 12.5% corporation tax and has maintained that for decades. The issue is about mechanisms whereby the companies can say their tax is not due in Ireland but elsewhere. They play off different countries rules against each other and the Irish rules are a bit more lax. For example, an Irish company only selling in Ireland or Europe cannot do this and will pay 12.5% corporation tax. So Irish companies probably suffer the most because of these shenanigans. The ****** Irish government should do more to stop this kind of thing of course. But in THIS case there is an extra allegation - that the Irish tax authorities gave Apple some kind of special treatment even compared to other international companies: https://www.independent.ie/irish-ne...le-profits-to-be-shifted-around-35009282.html
With all due respect - verify your own claims. I am Irish but I've also lived and worked (and paid tax!) in other parts of Europe. I think it's appalling that these companies can pull off these scams but to simply go 'oh its Irelands fault' is not accurate - it's alot more complicated than that. Rag on Ireland if you want - but like do your homework and get your facts straight. From your earlier posts:
-> it is abundantly obvious that you don't know how corporation tax works in Europe. If you set up a company in Germany for example and sell to all of Europe, you ONLY pay corporation tax in Germany where you are incorporated. You don't owe corporation tax in the other countries. Or Denmark if your company is based there, or Spain if you are based there, or Ireland if you are based there. Apply set their European headquarters in Ireland. Thus the tax in question was never due in any other EU country than Ireland. This is basic to how the EU single market works - ask pretty much any European citizen if you don't' believe me.
The case in question is that Ireland seem not have collected the Irish corporate tax due for mysterious reasons. The EU alledge that Ireland gave Apple a pass and the EU are now saying Ireland must collect this retrospectively. I personally think the EU are right and I want the tax paid. But none of it was or is due in other EU countries (unless rules change which they won't). As I said above - nobody is getting screwed over as much as the Irish tax payer and indigenous Irish businesses who had to try to compete with internationals over these years but still pay corporation tax.
Say what you want about Brexit but Apple is going to have to start paying taxes in the UK instead of Ireland.
I know, I know you'll say 'Apple pays everything it owes' Yeh because the EU has created a system where you can make all your money in say the UK (Apple's biggest European market) then pay tax on the profits in Ireland. It's a completely unfair and broken system, all the big companies do it. I believe Starbucks is registered in the Netherlands for example.
Ireland is going to be hit extremely hard by Brexit.
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I really hope Boris does what he says, if he does he's secured a lot of new voters, if not they'll go back to Labour.
I was reading he is already moving government jobs out of the capital and seriously focusing on Northern investment for once. I do like the Singapore on Thames approach of low taxes.
I know, I know you'll say 'Apple pays everything it owes' Yeh because the EU has created a system where you can make all your money in say the UK (Apple's biggest European market) then pay tax on the profits in Ireland. It's a completely unfair and broken system, all the big companies do it. I believe Starbucks is registered in the Netherlands for example.
Ireland is going to be hit extremely hard by Brexit.
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I really hope Boris does what he says, if he does he's secured a lot of new voters, if not they'll go back to Labour.
I was reading he is already moving government jobs out of the capital and seriously focusing on Northern investment for once. I do like the Singapore on Thames approach of low taxes.
The € 10 billion was not tax but fine from EU.
Seems that you are a very BIG funboy...
Of course, Ireland wants all the benefits of a unified market with as few obligations and downsides as possible.
Ireland adopted VAT in 1971 and it is currently at 23% for most things. Also VAT is a personal tax and most companies are exempt.
Corporate taxation is up to each member state. The allegation from EU is that the low corporate tax was not opened to everyone, but only to Apple, which constituted illegal state aid. If it had been open to every Irish company it would not have been illegal state aid.
Corporate taxation is different from personal taxation and is not based on where the sales is happening.
Lets say a German auto manufacturer makes a car model in Germany and the sales are divided into 50% in Germany and 50% in other EU countries. Are the taxed divided equally? No, probably Germany will receive almost all of the corporate taxation and the other EU countries will receive close to zero.
Wrong. First, there was no €10 billion fine paid to the EU. Apple paid back taxes to Ireland in 2018 in the amount of 13 billion euros ($14.3 billion) but that was not reflected in the 2018 financials, as it was not applicable to the current (2018) year. It was attributable to previous years and was charged against those prior years by adjusting shareholder equity.
Here are the taxes paid in the last seven years, based on profits reported in th years:
2013 $9.1 billion
2014 $10 billion
2015 $13.3 billion
2016 $10.4 billion
2017 $11.6 billion
2018 $13.4 billion
2019 $10.5 billion
40 years of Tbell? Good god....your bowels....your toilet....must be a putrid mess.
or it could go the other way, he has grown so accustomed to it if he has anything resembling healthy lookout 💩💩💩
You do know that the EU has laws against the kind of basically zero tax deals Apple had with Ireland before it was leaked and the EU courts ordered it torn up and Apple to pay Ireland back taxes on their standard business rate? The issue people have with it is that their arrangement was not only illegal, it was very illegal and and went against one of the founding documents of the EU, the Treaty of Rome, which Ireland ratified in the 1970s!
This is the rough equivalent of a corporation in the U.S breaking the constitution, but unlike the U.S, the EU doesn't have the ability to put anyone behind bars for breaking it's constitution. If deals like these weren't illegal then they would never have needed to be secret and leaked to become publicly known let alone found as such by the EU courts. It's not a political decision that has forced Apple to put aside the money they would have owed the Irish tax authorities had they paid the normal Irish tax rate rather than the 0.015% they actually paid, it was the EU courts that very clearly concluded that this deal was illegal and that Apple had to pay their taxes to Ireland in full.
The issue is that there was a special arrangement between Apple and Ireland that gave them a much lower tax rate than the standard rate and that this deal was secret as it was blatantly against EU law. Standard business taxes in Ireland for most of that deal's duration was 20% while the secret deal between Apple and the Irish government gave Apple specifically a rate of 0.015% which obviously was much lower than even the 16% the standard Irish business tax rate has been lowered to since.
After that deal was leaked to the media and then into the hands of the EU courts, the courts have ordered Apple to pay Ireland back taxes based on the 20% and 16% rates where applicable. This is what both Apple and Ireland are disputing. For Apple it's money they didn't want to pay and for Ireland it's the fact that they have other deals like this and they've used deals like this to bring in foreign companies like Apple to the country.
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Well, EU is right. If Ireland had the same open taxation for every other company it would have reacted by kicking it entirely. There are rules when you participate in a union. Everyone can understand that
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VAT exemption is in effect for every business within EU. Everybody but you seems to know this
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...which was 0% lol please do learn some math at least and then we can proceed with ... vocabulary
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