Apple should repay Ireland €13bn, European Commission rules

[DJ-1701]

Apple should repay Ireland €13bn, European Commission rules - BBC News

[Vasriel]

The 13 Billion Euros Apple owe is the same Ireland's healthcare budget - BBC Twitter

[Arthur]

I think Apple will contest that it is Ireland that broke the law.

The European Commission are to blame...

 

A Message to the Apple Community in Europe

 

As responsible corporate citizens, we are also proud of our contributions to local economies across Europe, and to communities everywhere. As our business has grown over the years, we have become the largest taxpayer in Ireland, the largest taxpayer in the United States, and the largest taxpayer in the world.

 

Over the years, we received guidance from Irish tax authorities on how to comply correctly with Irish tax law — the same kind of guidance available to any company doing business there. In Ireland and in every country where we operate, Apple follows the law and we pay all the taxes we owe.

 

The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process. The opinion issued on August 30th alleges that Ireland gave Apple a special deal on our taxes. This claim has no basis in fact or in law. We never asked for, nor did we receive, any special deals. We now find ourselves in the unusual position of being ordered to retroactively pay additional taxes to a government that says we don't owe them any more than we've already paid.

 

The Commission’s move is unprecedented and it has serious, wide-reaching implications. It is effectively proposing to replace Irish tax laws with a view of what the Commission thinks the law should have been. This would strike a devastating blow to the sovereignty of EU member states over their own tax matters, and to the principle of certainty of law in Europe. Ireland has said they plan to appeal the Commission’s ruling and Apple will do the same. We are confident that the Commission’s order will be reversed.

[TechMonkey]

Listening on the news for 2014 they paid €500 for every million euros profit they made. This worked out to be about 0.005% tax rate. I wish I could get that by "following the rules"