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Comment by alphadevx | Hacker News Reader

The legality I believe. I don't think the Irish Government or Apple tried to hide anything, so the facts are out there in the public domain (Apple is a public company). More about the EC implying it was illegal, but that has now been overturned so all parties legally (if not morally, depending on your point of view...) vindicated.

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Indeed. My understanding is that the deal is basically Ireland saying “hey Apple, employ Irish people in Irish Apple offices, and we’ll pass whatever laws you want to allow you to pay zero corporate tax in Europe, despite massive real (pre-fudging) profits.” And it’s not just Apple, it’s tonnes of US tech giants benefiting from this. It would be illegal if Apple got special treatment, which is what the original ruling found, but the appeal finds that all major US tech companies can access these loopholes, so it’s OK.

If so the only part of the comment you were replying to above that was "overturned" was the word "illegal". Just wanted to make that clear, since I'm one of the people who think that it's still immoral and should be illegal.

Well in a court of law, it is the letter of the law that matters, not how we feel. So it may be immoral but is not illegal.

Some countries including France and Germany have the concept of "Abuse of Rights" [0]. I don't know if it would apply in a case similar to Apple, but it can definitely apply when you're trying to find loopholes to not pay taxes.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_of_rights

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