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Comment by drivebycomment | Hacker News Reader

Apple pays the majority of taxes to US. They report US income and pay taxes for that to US. Ireland is involved only so far as EU income. So if your American app is sold to European users, the income is recognized as EU, and reported to Ireland.

https://fortune.com/2017/10/31/trump-tax-reform-apple-multin...

There are other possible criticisms on corporate tax and Apple, but this isn't a valid one.

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Of course it is valid. The principal on which much of taxation is based is that it is a tax on the benefit that the income provides. And that benefit accrues in the US.

The only way it can be claimed to be invalid is by conflating legal with moral.

You're suggesting that their EU sales shouldn't pay EU income at all, rather US income taxes instead? Usually the criticism of this is the opposite direction, that sales in Germany should pay taxes in Germany.

> You're suggesting that their EU sales shouldn't pay EU income at all,

Well, since this is Ireland tax rates we're talking about, this is almost the same thing…

That used to be true, but is no longer. Currently Apple et al pay 12.5% corporation tax in the Republic of Ireland, unlike the past where this rate existed but was notional as most of the revenue was ultimately booked to a real tax haven like Bermuda et al.

Glad it changed. It's still a 50% discount compared to most of EU though…

Sounds like something EU should change if EU don't like it.

I don't think this can be solved easily. Unless until https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220603IP... (3rd point) lands and the original idea is not messed up during the rounds of debate.

Until then, not going to happen IMHO. Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands benefit outrageously from this and since they can veto stuff it's really hard to plug these holes. I think Ireland gave up some ground in this regard since its position was starting to really annoy other EU members.

Eu is a complex entity, there's no such thing as “EU don't like it”.

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