Apple declined an invitation by EU committee to answer tax avoidance questions
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It's perfectly reasonable for the EU to say to Ireland 'you can't do that, it's stretching the rules' - but it's entirely unreasonable for the EU to change their minds willy nilly and submit to populist pressure and de-facto re-interpret the rules of business as they go along - and then apply them 25 years retroactively.
Especially when the very head of the EU, Jean Claude Junker is literally the guy who invented the tax-avoidance schemes for an entire nation - Luxembourg - while he was there.
The episode is rotten and stinks to high heaven.
The EU should focus more on harmonizing and clarifying their tax rules instead of deciding after the fact who they don't like - and more importantly - should be focused on developing competitive players in tech so they don't have to try to get into penalization wars.
Asia is undergoing massive growth, as is S. America, the US is doing really well, while the EU is kind of in a slump.
The loopholes should not have ever existed, but it's the EU's/ Ireland's job to make sure they don't exist, not Apple's.
Also - this is just the tip of the iceberg on this issue.
Finally, the EU wants to call Cook to the table not because it will provide any light on what's going on, rather, they want to try to make a public spectacle of it, i.e. 'Look Europe, we are taking those bad US companies to task' - it's all cynical optics.
Better to get their own house in order, Apple et. al. will follow whatever rules are on the table, just make them fair and clear.
Why did it take so many years? Because the former two were probably fighting it tooth and nail.
Asia & the US are having massive growth at the expense of the well-being of their own populations. You would do well to remember one can't eat money.
Because there wasn't enough money being missed for the EU to take care of it.
The EU was well aware and didn't decide to move until it was enough money to care about.
It should have been clipped from day one if it was against the rules.
They should work in the interests of shareholders, which tax avoidance in the extreme could turn out not to be.
More information is in the first linked article:
https://www.bna.com/apple-turns-down-n57982093151/
Apple claims answering public questions will interfere with their "pending appeal before the European Court of Justice challenging a European Commission illegal state aid decision".
They offered a private session, but that was not good enough, because the questions were not about the appeal, but the tax avoidance scheme documented in the Paradise Papers.