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Comment by jdalgetty | Hacker News Reader

Let’s see how much of these fines actually get paid.

There's nothing regarding Google in the article, but it is specifically mentioned that Apple's back taxes are already in escrow.

Since 2018. Can't help thinking that if with that money they had bought Apple shares, it would be now 3 times more.

It would kinda be funny if they did as they probably not want Apple to get fined as now they’d be shareholders

Would also be funny, if they were allowed to increase the penalty, based on how much they could have done with that money during that time. Opportunity cost.

The back taxes accrue interest - IIRC like €1.2B

Even at their market cap, I don't think this would be trivial to operationalize

> Since 2018. Can't help thinking that if with that money they had bought Apple shares, it would be now 3 times more.

If only they could have known the stock price six years into the future, they'd have made a killing in the stock market!

What's ironic is that the escrow account is now lesser because they used that money to buy eurozone government bonds which have since fallen.

From https://www.ft.com/content/d6b7d0fd-a41b-45a9-a830-9cacb10c5...

> The total in the account has fallen from the original €14.3bn set aside in 2018, as the money was invested in eurozone government bonds, which have dropped in value.

Apple already has €1.2bn interest on top of their 2016 ruling. They could probably try to keep this in courts but it seems unlikely they'll get further hearings on this now.

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