Sweetheart tax deal appeal: European Commission takes €13bn Apple state aid claim to the EU's highest court
- Reference: 1601044269
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/25/apple_ireland_state_aid_appeal/
- Source link:
[1]In July , the world-dominating consumer hardware and software firm had a €13bn (£11.6bn) tax bill overturned after the EU's General Court said it was not the recipient of unlawful state aid from the Republic of Ireland.
The European Commission had failed to meet the burden of proof required to show Ireland was at fault, the General Court said.
An earlier European Commission ruling in 2016 said Apple received "state aid" by being allowed to avoid paying the huge sums of tax on EU profit. Ireland was asked to reclaim the cash.
In [2]a statement , Vestager said the commission would fight on. It has decided to appeal against the General Court's judgment of July 2020 before the European Court of Justice.
"The General Court judgment raises important legal issues that are of relevance to the Commission in its application of State aid rules to tax planning cases," Vestager said. "The Commission also respectfully considers that in its judgment the General Court has made a number of errors of law. For this reason, the Commission is bringing this matter before the European Court of Justice."
The General Court had repeatedly confirmed the principle that, while EU member states could set their own tax laws, they should do so in respect of EU law, she said. "If Member States give certain multinational companies tax advantages not available to their rivals, this harms fair competition in the European Union in breach of State aid rules. There's more work ahead – including to make sure that all businesses, including digital ones, pay their fair share of tax where it is rightfully due."
Apple has strenuously denied it does not pay its fair share of tax. "We're proud to be the largest taxpayer in the world as we know the important role tax payments play in society," the tech monster said when the General Court ruled in its favour. "Apple has paid more than $100bn in corporate income taxes around the world in the last decade and tens of billions more in other taxes."
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a 2016 open letter: "We never asked for, nor did we receive, any special deals."
Apple paid the tax bill in 2018, [3]with the money now sitting in an escrow account managed by the Irish government .
With the money set to remain in escrow until the appeal process is exhausted, the $1.8-trillion company will have to make do until it gets a final decision. ®
Get our [4]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/15/apple_13bn_irish_tax_ruling_overturned/
[2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_20_1746
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2018/09/19/apple_alleged_state_aid_ireland/
[4] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
If we had the legal team and the accountants of these Big Corps, I'm sure we would use them to our advantage. I still don't like it, the tax laws are poorly written in most countries, most often favoring Big Corps. Remind me again which countries have good tax laws for the average joe?
Remind me again which countries have good tax laws for the average joe?
Most do, although good is debatebale. So if I were to register a company in Ireland and funnel all my business through there, HMRC would almost certainly argue that it's an artificial construct designed purely to avoid tax. And they'd probably be right.
And yet we're meant to believe that the world's largest company struggles to make a decent profit across the entire EU, despite cost saving measures like it's virtual Irish office that only really exists on paper. Or that lending it's EU operations say, $1tn is not a synthetic measure to reduce it's profitability.
But that's pretty much how it works, and generally a problem with international tax treaties as it is national. But such is the wacky world of business. Other shenanigans at the moment seem to be for private equity owners to force companies they own to raise debt so that can be siphoned back to the PE owners as dividends, leaving those companies holding the debt.
Apple probably feels the European Commission should be happy
that Apple doesn't charge them 30% for the time and effort Apple spends preparing, vetting, filing and paying their taxes.
Re: Apple probably feels the European Commission should be happy
That would be funny, Apple get to keep their Irish tax deal but get hit with an extra 30% sales tax on everything
We never asked for, nor did we receive, any special deals
One day Mr Cook, that will be written on your gravestone.
I admit my ignorance here, but isn't 1/6th of Ireland still under the direct control of the British Crown? Also, since Ireland is (at least partially) under control of the United Kingdom, with Brexit, why does the EU Commission even care? Once Brexit happens, they will be outside EU jurisdiction anyways...unless I'm missing something.
Well, at least you admitted it before you started!
You’re pretty much missing everything. The Republic of Ireland is *not* part of the United Kingdom, has nothing to do with the Crown and is not part of the Commonwealth.
For the Republic of Ireland, nothing changes after Brexit. It won’t be leaving the EU anymore than France or Belgium will be. It remains a member of the EU and is founder member of the Euro.
Turf war
I don't know who are the biggest bandits. The EU or Apple.
We should propose that those Big Companies with huge lawyer departaments muscle get fined in extra, for the same reason than a Hacker get sued when he do not disclose and exploit a bug in the wild.
OTOH
The money from Apple etc would come in handy to pay for all the border customs checkpoint the Republic of Ireland are soon going to need to set up.
"European Commission takes €13bn Apple state aid claim to...court"
Good, not least because Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc are serial tax avoiders and that means fewer nurses, doctors and teachers because the state doesn't have the money to pay for them.