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Comment by sqdbps | Hacker News Reader

"... that push has prompted complaints from American tech giants, which argue that they are being unfairly singled out by Brussels. European officials strongly deny those claims..."

After so many targeted requirements, restrictions, investigations, fines, and taxes no one's really buying that denial.

It's tariff by other name, which lends credence to Trump's rhetoric about how we haven't been treated fairly by our so called allies.

EU governance and enforcement lends itself to be hijacked by the bloc's most powerful members (france and germany, in this particular case the french) and use them as a cudgel against perceived business threats.

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No it's not. Amazon pays less taxes on books sold than any bricks-and-mortar store in countries like Germany. They abuse the broken tax system and force smaller players that can't afford those structures (or get an illegal special Ireland tax treatment like Apple) out of business because they can't compete against massive scale combined with lower taxes. The EU now tries to fix the system because those companies keep evading all other measures. The EU population and local businesses do not accept that damaging behavior anymore. You want to make profit in our countries? Don't abuse the system or it will be fixed to be fair again.

If you are going to benefit from the EU's consolidated market you can't complain about the benefits companies are extracting from that same arrangement.

Not to mention that taxing specific companies that happen to come from the same country while the keeping the tax rules unchanged for the rest of the economy isn't fair or free trade and would justifiably require retaliation.

Ireland agreed to a special Apple tax treatment so that Apple pays practically no taxes. Special deals for single companies are illegal under EU law. You want access to the EU market? Play by the rules.

The tax law is also not applicable only to US companies but to all companies.

This is like saying all law breaking mafia members that corrupted a member state are coming from the same country and putting them behind bars is not fair because the EU is a consolidated market and if you want to profit from it you have to agree that the mafia extracts value from the arrangement and leaving the rules unchanged for the rest of the non-mafia economy is not fair or free trade.

The commisioner has argued that Ireland agreed to a special deal for Apple. Ireland and Apple strongly deny that there was any favourable tax deal offered. The ECJ will decide the case and unless the EU wants to undermine the entire system of transfer pricing which is the basis for international trade, they will side with Ireland and Apple.

The EC ruled the tax deal illegal and forced Ireland to collect $13bn which Ireland denied to do. The EC thus put Ireland to the ECJ and started implementing alternative tax rules, with the 3% revenue tax being the result. Paying 0.005% taxes by evading the system? The system will be changed.

"The ECJ will decide the case and unless the EU wants to undermine the entire system of transfer pricing which is the basis for international trade, they will side with Ireland and Apple."

Transfer of profit to the lowest tax destination is not the basis for international trade. Evading taxes will result in tax laws adapting.

This is simply factually incorrect. Ireland and Apple lodged the appeal to the ECJ against the ruling in November 2016. Ireland was forced to collect the 13B pending the appeal in December 2017.

The US is not the lowest tax destination - in fact it has a relatively high corporate tax rate. Apple is making their international profits subject to US corporate tax which is why the US is on the side of Ireland and Apple in the appeal.

Sorry, but you completely misunderstand the situation. This is not about moving profit to the US and the US is not the tax haven I'm talking about. Get your USA out of your head and just accept that they don't pay the taxes they are obliged to pay in the EU by evading them.

Putting "sorry" at the start of a comment accusing me of misunderstand the situation doesn't really help here. I've contradicted your claimed sequence of events and of course I googled before writing the post to confirm my memory of the timeline of the EC ruling and the ECJ involvement.

There is no corporate tax evasion here and that is confirmed by reports like this one[1] which makes it clear that offshore Apple (and other US corporation) profits are clearly liable for US corporate tax. The fact that they can defer paying their US corporate tax is due to a quirk of the US tax system and nothing more.

[1] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4150066-repatriation-make-2...

The 3% is a proposed duty/tarif which has nothing to do with how Apple's profits are and were taxed. This is a tax on revenue/sales/imports not on company profits.

Allegedly.

That aside: Ireland has a lower corporate tax rate than say france, so for example a soap company based in ireland doing business in france pays the irish corporate tax rate, it's not illegal and they're not part of the "mafia", now the EU is saying that soap companies will have to pay 3% tax on soap sold in france (in addition to VAT) further still they have no problem with non soap companies and that it's a coincidence that most soap companies affected come from the same country.

Yeah except Apple does not pay the 12.5% Ireland rate but 0.005% because of a system of tax evasion. How could anyone deny that this system must be changed?

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/30/how-apples-irish-subsidiarie...

Though it's not like you treat your so called allies fairly, either.

We have far lower tariffs and fewer business barriers than any other market.

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