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It's pretty obvious why Apple's appeal is based on procedural grounds and that's because the EC decision is against Ireland and not Apple.

http://www.finance.gov.ie/sites/default/files/161219%20Summa...

Ireland's appeal gets into the meat of it. I've been reading about this case as well as others against Luxembourg and Netherlands and I suspect it's very likely these decisions by the EC will not survive appeal. The use of state aid laws in this way is novel and the precedent it would set if they somehow prevailed would be a massive shift in sovereignty from member states to the EU.

Low tax member states like Ireland have been under political assault for decades and this is the latest attempt to redress something the EU has no power over. If the EU wanted a unified tax regime across all members it should have been designed that way from the outset, but then the EU project may not have ever taken off if it required ceding so much sovereignty.

Politically it seems like these cases can backfire massively. I suspect that when the EC began these investigations they didn't expect Brexit could happen. The implicit gamble they're making is popular support for combatting tax avoiders will be greater than rising Euroscepticism.

EDIT: Just to be clear because it seems my comment is being misunderstood by several people, my second paragraph is my comment specifically about this case. The third paragraph is my explanation of the political context in which these cases have been brought. It's obvious these cases aren't about tax rates (it is indirectly, which was my point) because the EU pretty clearly has no authority over that.

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> Low tax member states like Ireland have been under political assault for decades and this is the latest attempt to redress something the EU has no power over. If the EU wanted a unified tax regime across all members it should have been designed that way from the outset,

You're wrong, this is not about harmonizing tax rates. Ireland already has one of the lowest corporate tax rates which is 12.5%. However, through the Ireland deal/loophole, Apple was paying an effective rate of 0.0005%. Rectifying that is the point[1]. The EU specifically put these anti-state aid laws on the books decades ago, it's not new. Ireland will still have the ability to set their tax rates for all coporations

[1] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm

So, the thing I am curious about.. what will happen when the first member state lowers its corporate tax rate to 0%? I can easily see that happening within the next decade or so (Hungary is at 9%, Malta at 5%, etc).

Question is that how does a state fund itself with that low of corporate tax? The entity that Apple is shuffling the money through in Ireland has 0 employees and no office and thus doesn't generate any other tax revenue.

Corporate taxes tend to only be a small amount of the amount of incoming tax. Personal taxes, i.e. on salaries / dividends / capital gains taxes tend to generate the bulk of tax revenues.

0.0005% is > 0% which is what they would get without this arrangement. In effect Ireland set's things up to collect a token payment by letting companies dodge other companies taxes. (ed: taxes paid by other companies.) This presents zero problems for Ireland and pisses off other countries.

> by letting companies dodge other companies taxes

I think you mean "by letting companies dodge other country's taxes"!

Not many people here seem to appreciate that that's what Apple is doing. It's basically a scam.

(1) Avoid paying taxes in the UK, Germany, France etc by claiming you're taxed in Ireland.

(2) Once in Ireland, channel the money into a fake company (0 staff, 0 offices) that is stateless and isn't taxed anywhere.

> This presents zero problems for Ireland and pisses off other countries.

Exactly. It's a fraud on EU taxpayers outside Ireland. Apple gets all the benefits of state spending in EU countries -- education, health, police, roads etc -- and avoids paying its fair share of the costs.

> I think you mean "by letting companies dodge other country's taxes"!

No, I was thinking companies dodge the taxes other companies pay. Saying they dodge other countries taxes is not really correct as these companies are following the other countries tax laws. France etc. could have different laws which prevented companies from benefiting from Ireland's tax laws.

Basically, "by claiming you're taxed in Ireland" only works because France, and Germany etc have laws saying it works.

It works because EU laws says that if you operate in one EU country you can operate in any EU country from it. And due to this EU has very strict laws about giving preferential treatment to companies.

Sure. The problem is Apple telling France, Germany etc that they're taxed in Ireland, and then the money not being taxed in Ireland because it's funneled into some stateless figment of Apple's corporate imagination....

Increase income taxes. Remember, when a "corporation" pays taxes, people like shareholders, workers, and consumers are paying taxes.

Interesting budget question, how will government fund itself?

I guess nations like malta could rely on exporting state owned ventures like taboo, but what about Hungary? They happen to have the highest value added tax in Europe, and Tax revenue in Hungary stand at 39.3% of GDP. One way or the other, taxes are being paid.

Income taxes (i.e. personal taxes, dividend taxes, capital gains taxes), VAT, etc etc. Corporate taxes tend to not bring in that much money for most countries.

Governments fund their spending with more sensible tax methods? The incentives of a corporate income tax are wacky. It basically disincentives economic development. Also it's possible for multinationals to push income around and largely evade income taxes anyway, making them very unfair to non-multinationals.

I agree. I think it's better to tax dividends higher, but say, not tax corporate profits. That would allow you reinvest most of those profits back into the business without taking a hit.

If a company has made a profit then it's too late to reinvest that money.It is money that the company didn't find a way to spend.

Profits sit in bank accounts or are distributed to shareholders. It might make sense to grant companies a tax-free allowance equivalent to six months of operational costs, but corporation tax is designed to deter hoarding and thereby force money into circulation

There is no such thing as companies hoarding money. They don't stick billions of Euros in a big vault somewhere. They deposit it in bank accounts (or other similar investments), and then the banks put some multiple of the deposits into circulation through fractional reserve lending.

wow, way to nitpick on irrelevant things. you know exactly what he meant

It is absolutely relevant. This is the fundamental basis of the modern monetary system, yet people here are asking for policy changes without even understanding how it works.

Irish corporate tax rate is 13.5% and has been since 1980's and was set to try and encourage business to come to Ireland and to get the country out of a recession.

The ruling is not that novel, and can be seen as just an other in a long list of fair trade laws. If EU allows nations to give subsidy to specific companies, then what stop other nations from using tariffs, preferential treatment, quotas, or other things which international trade law has fought against in the last few hundred years. Sovereignty over fair trade has been given up by most nations, including the U.S. (through they are also the ones that have been active in pushing such laws).

Ireland has a clear alternative, which is to grant such tax law for every company within their border. It would kill their budget, and bring down their own government, but they could do as is their right under sovereignty. Low tax is not illegal within fair market rules, so long everyone is competing on equal ground.

Ireland DOES grant that tax law to all companies within their borders, as the article clearly outlines.

From TFA, among other relevant paragraphs:

> It is important to note that the words “any aid” covers not only one-off deals between Ireland and Apple, but also any general provision of the Irish Tax Code that would encourage favorable treatment.

Corporate tax in irland is NOT 0.005 percent. It is, as you even quoted, a one-off deal between Ireland and Apple.

The EU article simply covers any deal which would create such favorable treatment, and the key word is "distort competition".

"any aid granted by a member state or through state resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favoring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall … be incompatible with the internal market.”"

There are no one-off deals, and Apple doesn't pay 0.005%.

Apple pays Ireland 12.5% of all taxable-in-Ireland income. That's because that's Ireland's corporate income tax rate. Conveniently, because of the structure of Irish tax law, very very little income is taxable in Ireland. And that's more than is taxable in any other EU country. And, in fact, there's no country where very much of their income is taxable. Pretty awesome for them, I guess.

When the bullshitters say "paying 0.005% effective tax rate", they mean "when you take all their revenue everywhere [in the EU], they pay 0.005% on that". That's not how tax works for any corporation ever.

As I've said in another comment, what Apple is doing is basically a scam.

(1) Avoid paying taxes in the UK, Germany, France etc by claiming you're taxed in Ireland.

(2) Once in Ireland, channel the money into a fake company (0 staff, 0 offices) that is stateless and isn't taxed anywhere.

This is "creative accounting" at its finest.....

You're missing several stages in how the creative accounting works, and each of those stages are, separately, probably good things, which is why they exist in the first place.

Note, for example, that the UK and Germany and France all have laws that make it okay to avoid paying taxes by claiming (truthfully) that you're taxed in Ireland, according to the laws of tax residency of those respective countries.

But yes, it's an undesirable-to-collective-civilization loophole, and it'd be nice for it to be closed. I'd love for Apple to be compelled to pay more taxes. Yes yes yes! I'm surprised that the EU is making so much headway in this round, but if they fail in this round, I resoundingly hope they pass some new laws, such that they can win in the future.

The "head office" company isn't stateless, btw, and btw it technically has an office (usually a P.O. Box) and some people do work for it. There are maybe a dozen companies involved, including the actual-work-doing companies in the UK and Germany and France, and every one of those companies have an HQ in a state. I think that the "head office" is even located legally in Ireland.

> the UK and Germany and France all have laws that make it okay to avoid paying taxes by claiming (truthfully) that you're taxed in Ireland

Yes. The problem is that Apple isn't paying taxes in Ireland on the money it tells the UK and Germany and France is being taxed in Ireland.

There's no good way to gloss over this. It's either criminal or it's unethical.

It's not a scam as much as it's a loophole. The other countries allow for corporations to not pay taxes if they are paying taxes in another country. Apple is paying taxes in Ireland, so they are not required to pay taxes in those other countries. In Ireland, though, the law there says that you can only be taxed on income that's actually generated in Ireland. Since Apple only generates sales income in Ireland from things like online sales and regional sales, they only get taxed on those amounts. It's a loophole. The loophole should be closed, but I don't think Apple should have to pay anything in back taxes because what they were doing was completely legal and allowed by all the laws currently in place.

> It's not a scam as much as it's a loophole.

You surely don't mean that Apple accidentally created a stateless company with no staff and no buildings to swindle taxpayers out of billions? I'm pretty sure a lot of planning went into it.

If it's arguably legal, there's nothing ethical about going out of your way to devise and exploit these "loopholes".

Frankly, it's just what you'd expect from a brutal multi-national corporation that mercilessly exploits underpaid Chinese workers, despite having over $200 billion in cash....

I never said that planning didn't go into it nor did I suggest that there was any accident. It's a loophole, though. It's a creative way to use the current, lawful tax codes. Why would a company pay more than what they're legally entitled to pay? That's literally throwing money away. As I said, in my last comment, the loophole should be closed but to suggest that Apple should pay back taxes on it is ridiculous.

Edit: I also want to push back on your comment about them exploiting Chinese workers. Apple doesn't exploit the workers, the factory owners do. Apple does everything it can to minimize the exploitation of the workers including random factory audits and employee surveys. No other electronics company in the US does this and, frankly, Apple doesn't have to. They pay someone to make components for them and if the company they pay say that they can make those components, then that's really the end of the story. Apple realizes that Chinese culture and law don't support human rights and well-being so they go above and beyond to try and correct the situation. If they were as monolithic and uncaring as you claim, they wouldn't even do that.

You need to do more research. Apple says it does have responsibility for workers in its supply chain, and some of your statements are not factually correct.

Here's an example of how Apple actually works. (1) Enough Foxconn workers commit suicide to put pressure on Apple. (2) Foxconn increases pay and improves working conditions. (3) Apple moves some iPhone production from Foxconn to Pegatron, which is cheaper, because Pegatron workers earn less and are treated worse.

Apple moved some production from a company that made real efforts to stop child labor (school-children bussed in for "work experience" on production lines) to one where it still goes on.

Given that Apple has a $200 billion cash mountain and the workers get peanuts, this is a shitty way to behave.

If you want to take the line that Apple can be as unethical as it likes in exploiting Chinese workers and tax loopholes -- because profits -- then I guess you have bigger problems.

Except that's not at all what I said and none of your statements are factually correct. You have no evidence for any of what you just said and ignored evidence that Apple has done more than either company to raise the standards at these factories. They moved production from Foxconn exactly because of these faults.

And I never said they can be as unethical as they like either, so I won't be replying further as you can't make your point without being deceptive and straw-manning.

Haha. As I said, you need to do more research. You could start with China Labor Watch. You'd also do better if you approached this with an open mind.

> They moved production from Foxconn exactly because of these faults.

Love to see your evidence for that, if there is any.

> ignored evidence that Apple has done more than either company to raise the standards at these factories

Depends how you measure it. Apple makes the most money and, because it needs to maintain a false image, it has the most to lose. However, it's been aware of child labor since 2008, if not earlier. It must also be aware that companies engineer around its guidelines, so they are more of a PR stunt than anything else.

A hugely rich company like Apple could certainly make a difference if it were serious. Pity it isn't.

I do approach this with an open mind and I have looked at China Labor Watch extensively. Unfortunately, they're not unbiased either and their "research" has, in the past, included production lines that were not producing Apple products but products of other manufacturers. In addition, even CLW has had to admit that conditions improved drastically for Apple's manufacturing lines due to their random audits. Apple also was the only company to initiate an investigation into Foxconn via the FLA to prevent exactly what you're describing.

Again, it's not a magic wand that they can wave and magically remove all child labor. The only thing they can do is contract their suppliers under fair working conditions and audit them to make sure that the contract is keeping their word. Apple doesn't own those factories, they don't hire the employees, and they don't run the lines. They simple order product from these companies under certain conditions (including workers protections) and are promised that those conditions will be met. I don't know what else you expect them to do and I'm curious if you're this vehement about all the other manufacturers that use the same factories and don't make contractual guidelines, don't audit the factories, and don't actively investigate them.

So much for you "not replying further" ;-)

Apple wasn't the first to audit production lines, but it does have some special problems. For a start, its "big bang" event-based marketing model puts exceptional stress on pre-launch production, and on Foxconn when it needs to find 200,000 or so extra staff.

There are other aspects, too. (1) Apple markets itself as a "good" company, which invites criticism when it behaves like any other brutal capitalism corporation, or worse; (2) Apple's $200 billion cash pile means it has no excuse for the frequently appalling treatment of Chinese workers; (3) Tim Cook has said that Apple is responsible for everyone in its supply chain.

So the lame excuse that "everyone does it" doesn't apply.

The bottom line is that Apple knows perfectly well that its guidelines are not being followed, and that it can afford to treat its workers better. But if it's not being hammered in the press for it, it really doesn't care.

afaik the problem is this.

apple should pay taxes where they do business, but they dont, they tunnel everything thru ireland.

and ireland says, ok apple you have to pay only the tax on the income u generated here in ireland, everything that came from outside is free.

> It is, as you even quoted, a one-off deal between Ireland and Apple.

no, the phrase referred to _possible_ one-off deals between Ireland and Apple. Just mentioning them does not cause them to appear.

See:

> the words “any aid” covers not only one-off deals between Ireland and Apple, but also any general provision...

You are missing the point completely.

This case is not about lower or higher taxes. This is not the EU telling member states what tax rates they should have.

This is purely about whether or not Apple got special treatment that is not available to other companies.

The EU cannot allow the biggest corporations to go shop around for sweetheart deals that smaller companies have no chance of getting.

[EDIT] Your EDIT contradicts your second paragraph. This case is about special treatment for a specific company. Whichever way it is decided by the courts, it does not affect the sovereign rights of member states to make tax laws as they see fit. They just have to apply those tax laws in a non-discriminatory fashion.

This is not the EU telling member states what tax rates they should have.

How is it not that? The EU is not supposed to have any power over tax at all. Yet here it is, telling Ireland to charge Apple "back taxes" against its will.

The EU cannot allow the biggest corporations to go shop around for sweetheart deals that smaller companies have no chance of getting.

Of course it can. And in fact it must, because tax is not an EU competency.

> Yet here it is, telling Ireland to charge Apple "back taxes" against its will.

This has nothing to do with the tax system

> Of course it can. And in fact it must, because tax is not an EU competency.

Of course it cannot, because it has nothing to do with the tax system

>tax is not an EU competency

Tax _law_ is not EU competency, but this case is not about Irish tax law.

This case is about a specific ruling by the Irish tax authorities concerning Apple and only Apple.

If a country were to give special favors to some companies and not others then that would violate EU rules that are supposed to create a level playing field for all.

If you completely exclude tax rulings from consideration when it comes to competition regulation, then competition law would not be worth the paper it's written on.

Every country could then use special tax deals instead of subsidies to help specific companies. That's exactly what state aid rules are supposed to prevent.

[Edit] Please note that I have no opinion on whether or not Apple did actually get special treatment.

And what if a country passes a law saying that industry sector X is taxed less than industry sector Y, or companies over or under a certain size are taxed less? These things are quite common. Wouldn't that also be "state aid"? Well, maybe it would and maybe it wouldn't, depending how the Commission feels that day.

There's certainly an element of truth there, but it's a bit of a smoke screen. The fact that there are grey areas doesn't detract from the concept that a dividing line can be devised and enforced. We do it all the time. Age of consent laws, tax brackets, and a million other particular cases all involve us saying that we're drawing a line that's arbitrary near the boundary but profoundly meaningful if one takes a step or two back from the fine details.

So I see nothing wrong with saying, "Apple paying 0.005% obviously constitutes 'state aid', and we'll work out the complicated instances if we need to".

No, that would would not be special treatment or illegal state aid, because it is based on objective criteria. A specific company either is or is not in a particular industry. A specific company has a particular size or it doesn't.

It's not negotiable on a case by case bases depending on what a specific company offers in return.

But of course there can always be disputes and differences in opinion, so ultimately a court will decide whose interpretation of the law is correct, just as it would be done on the national level.

OK, so all Ireland has to do is pass a law that says "Whoever the Finance Ministry decrees doesn't have to pay income tax, is exempt". That's an entirely objective criteria: a company is either exempted or it's not.

Now don't tell me this is different because the Ministry's decisions might not be "objective". Such is the case for all political decisions, including varying tax rates across different industries.

A law like that would effectively be the abolition of the rule of law itself. No self respecting constitution would allow it. It would be incompatible with most international treaties and a violation of human rights.

Laws are by definition different from ruling by decree on a case by case basis. If a government had the right to pass laws such as the one you suggest without limits, it would effectively expempt itself from complying with any law at all. All other laws would simply cease to exist.

It could for instance decide to give tax breaks to relatives of ministers or to anyone who bribes the prime minister or apply different tax rates depending on color of skin or slap punitive taxes on opposition media to destroy them.

If a majority in a country were to give its government such powers, say in a constitutional referendum, it would mean that democracy has been abolished.

Democracy is impossible without the rule of law, without minority rights, without human rights, without balance of power.

I think the problem here wasn't even the low tax rate, but the special arrangements they made with select companies.

Because that allows them to offer Luxembourg-style almost-zero tax rates to a few international giants without sacrificing their domestic tax base.

Individual subsidies have been illegal under most circumstances for quite a while now, and giving them a 95% tax rebate is obviously almost identical in effect and morality (law to be determined).

It's also a pretty classic case: Apple is going to have European headquarters somewhere, and any tax rebate they get is a loss of X in European tax revenue and a plus of the same magnitude for Apple's shareholders. It'd be stupid for the European countries not to cooperate (with the understanding of transfers to those countries whose competitiveness suffers)

> Low tax member states like Ireland have been under political assault for decades and this is the latest attempt to redress something the EU has no power over

The ruling explicitly says that there is no problem with Irish tax system if it is open to ALL the companies.

This is allegedly ilegal state aid because it is a sweetheart deal yo ONE company

Apple might be able to get away here for now, but laws will continue to be adjusted in order to make it harder and harder to arbitrarily move profits around. This is an ongoing process that has started years ago. These legal adjustments are all aimed towards making sure that profits are taxed in the country in which they are actually generated. In the worst case, this will end up as a cat-and-mouse game between governments and corporations and lead to a bureaucratic nightmare, which would be entirely avoidable if companies like Apple were more honest to begin with. And don't tell me that companies have a "fiduciary duty" to avoid as much taxes as possible in order to maximize profits. That's a myth. Shareholders are completely free to define the purpose of a company in its articles. And in fact, the articles usually don't say "maximize profits at all cost", but are kept general enough to allow for paying taxes as it was intended by the law.

When an iPad is sold in Germany, does Apple pay VAT in Germany or in Ireland? (Serious question. I don't live in the EU.)

If it's sold by anyone inside the EU either physically or online Germany receives VAT at the German VAT rate.

Germany

I'm fairly certain this is a case about corporate income tax (tax on profits) not VAT (tax on sales).

It depends. If they sell it to a business they don't pay VAT at all.

For sales to consumers they would now pay the customer's country , I believe that just changed about a year ago. Amazon and Luxembourg may or may not have been responsible for that change :)

To be precise, the Luxembourg loophole was in force only for digital goods.

Really? I seem to remember that they paid VAT to Luxembourg, but had made a pretty good deal with the authorities that reduced their effective VAT rate to below 1%.

I think it applied only to Prime and to mp3's, at least after 2008 or so. This was also the reason why Skype, eBay and others had their European HQ in Luxembourg.

OTOH books had reduced VAT in most countries.

Others have answered your question correctly.

I'd like to add that Apple doesn't pay VAT, the consumer does. It's just Apple's responsibility to collect the VAT from the consumer and forward it to the tax authority.

Apple doesn't pay the VAT the consumer does. That is why Apple products costs roughly 30% (24% VAT + some extra due to fucking up the dollar to euro conversion) more in Finland when compared to US even though they ship directly from a factory in China.

Yes, the consumer technically pays the tax. However, Apple acts as the collector of the tax from the consumer, and is responsible for "passing it on" to the appropriate tax authority. So, the reform the asked question: What tax authority does Apple report and pay the taxes to?

And the answer is that the EU regulations state that VAT taxes are to be paid in the country in which the transaction takes place. If the transaction is online (and potentially therefore spanning multiple countries), the customer's location is used as the place of transaction.

Sure, there is a separate line item on the bill, but if Apple collects the wrong amount they are on the hook to pay the correct amount not the consumer.

Forget about 'fiduciary duty'; it's just plain dumb to pay more taxes than what you minimally owe according to the letter of the law. It's literally giving away your money.

Giving away your money for the common good.

If I'm voluntarily giving money away, I can think of many ways to better serve the common good than to give it to the government.

of the people, by the people, for the people

The question why there were flaws in current law in first place. I think they were there because politicians like to strut around with CEOs who bring employment opportunities(however dubious) in those areas which help them win votes. Governments sign MOUs and preferential treatment agreements to bring companies in their areas.

Instead of Apple if governments were more honest they would have told locals that companies are not looking to set up base here because they are seeking tax benefits and as upright people we will not do that.

In some cases it's because .005% on billions of dollars is a better deal than 12% on zeros of dollars. These countries are competing with other countries on who offers the better deal to get a piece of the Apple/Google/whoever pie.

Of course I agree with that. It is kind of cognitive dissonance in people that I should be able to negotiate a sweet deals for my 'humble needs' but companies must take most expensive deals for themselves.

The nullification of a member state's unfair tax law seems fine, but the retroactive application of the new/old tax law seems odd to me. How long were the EU getting their hackles up about Apple in the years preceding this charge (a citation would be nice)?

Theere is no nullification of any tax law and there is no retroactivity in this case

And, like in all the other case about ilegal state aids, the EU can go back 10 years since the start of the investigation

The problem, to me, lies in the fact that a multinational company gets punished because a member state fucked up. How is that fair to the company?

Say I'm a balling billionaire, wanting to invest, and politicians in an EU country are willing to attract me by giving me a very generous tax break. There is no reason to say no. However, in this particular case, if ruled that this is state aid, a country gets rewarded with additional tax revenue for doing a bad job / acting like an amateur. They need to find a different punishment mechanism, because in its current state this just incentives countries to introduce half assed laws and systems.

No, a company is not being punished. What the ruling does is fixing an ilegal advantage given to a company

So it's the responsibility of a company to make sure then that laws are properly made / voted / etc? Where does this end? Why exactly do we still need politicians then?

Second, while such a ruling does indeed fix the situation, there are usually plenty of alternative ways of structuring a transaction to achieve a similar tax rate. Why would I ever bother making a deal with a country that has "screwed" investors over in the past?

Because you should know better? These kind of deals are totally shady anyway and some alarms should go off in your head.

Claiming ignorance just makes you look stupid.

Then you don't know too many wealthy people. :) There are plenty that manage to achieve very, very low total tax rates. (i.e. <5%)

And they presumably know they're taking a risk, depending on exactly what strategies they're doing to do that, and where the income originates.

People who get too clever with that sort of thing are why there are Federal prisons with golf courses.

Not really. We're talking avoidance, not evasion. But that's me speaking, from an EU perspective. If you don't break any laws, there's no way you'll end up in jail. Maybe it's different in the US.

That's the point -- one way to commit tax evasion is to get a little bit too creative with your tax avoidance.

I'm quite sure Ireland didn't give the tax break to Apple without asking. If they asked they should have known that even asking for it is illegal in EU (and has been for a long time now). Or they are just plain stupid for having incompetent people deciding how their money flows.

> The nullification of a member state's unfair tax law seems fine

Given the climate around Brexit and the fact that Ireland is fighting back on this ruling with Apple, it is astounding to me that you think this is "fine".

Courts generally aren't concerned with the political "climate" when interpreting the law.

They have 231 billion cash on hand. So not really a big deal for them to pay a small fraction of that as taxes, as they should have done and therefore should not have this much cash on hand.

I can't tell if you are sarcastic. Just because they have money doesn't mean they need to give it away. I'll bet Apple will spend it in a more productive way than any EU government would.

Productive for whom? For the benefit of EU taxpayers? Seems unlikely.

Clearly corporations shouldn't have to pay taxes. The money they spend already fosters the economy so they're already at least as good as any government.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't have to pay taxes. I'm saying they should have to pay what is required by law in the jurisdiction that they are in. The EU going after them as a special case because they have a lot of money doesn't help anything. The EU should focus on fixing the source of the issue, which is the concept of a tax haven within the EU. Going after Apple doesn't fix the root cause.

If they didn't have a lot of money, they wouldn't have been in this situation and there wouldn't be anything to go after.

As an EU member country, this is EU jurisdiction. The root issue was that they made a deal with Ireland that is invalid under EU law. That was fixed.

With apologies to Office Space: They didn't punish Apple, they just fixed a glitch.

> The EU should focus on fixing the source of the issue, which is the concept of a tax haven within the EU.

The case has nothing to do with Ireland having low tax rates.

And Double Irish has been closed

Wow, you're going at this from completely opposite sides, but in almost identical superficiality :)

The EU is pretty damn efficient, by the way. Mostly because it's one of the few governments that doesn't derive its impact from the power to tax & spend.

But the money wouldn't even go to the EU. It goes to it's rightful owner: Ireland.

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