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The European Commission said on Wednesday it will take Ireland to court for its failure to recover up to 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) of tax due from Apple (via Reuters). Apple was ordered to pay the unpaid taxes in August 2016 after the Commission ruled that the company had received illegal state aid.
The Commission argued that Irish revenue commissioners gave Apple unfair advantage between 1991 and 2007 by allowing the company to move income from the European market through two "non-resident" head office subsidiaries based in Ireland. Ireland vowed to appeal the ruling.
“More than one year after the Commission adopted this decision, Ireland has still not recovered the money,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said, adding that Dublin had not even sought a portion of the sum.
“We of course understand that recovery in certain cases may be more complex than in others, and we are always ready to assist. But member states need to make sufficient progress to restore competition,” she added.
The Commission said the deadline for Ireland to implement its decision had been Jan. 3 this year and that, until the aid was recovered, the company continued to benefit from an illegal advantage.
Ireland's finance ministry said it had never accepted the Commission's analysis in the Apple state aid decision, but would collect the money due pending Dublin's own appeal of the ruling.
"It is extremely regrettable that the Commission has taken this action, especially in relation to a case with such a large scale recovery amount," the ministry said in a statement.
Apple claimed earlier this year that the Commission made "fundamental errors" when it ruled that the company owed Ireland the unpaid taxes plus interest, and argued that the profits to those activities were attributable to the United States.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has called the EC's ruling "total political crap" and described the lower end 0.005 percent tax rate Apple is accused of paying as a "false number". The Apple CEO has previously said he believes the decision will be reversed.
In addition, Vestager announced a demand for Amazon to pay around 250 million euros in taxes to Luxembourg. Amazon denied it owed any back tax, and claimed it had not received any "special treatment" from Luxembourg.
"We will study the Commission's ruling and consider our legal options, including an appeal," an Amazon spokesperson said.
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Top Rated Comments
(View all)And to the poster above, ROI does not want out of the EU. It has benefited massively from investments by the EU.
No company should be allowed to pay minimal tax, even if they’ve found some seedy loophole.
Apple and Ireland are aligned on this issue. Apple has put several billion into escrow with Ireland to comply with the law as it is written under the dispute process. But EU is trying to extract $ from US taxpayers to pay for socialist and insolvent countries like France, Portugal, Greece, Italy and others.
Ireland has to abide bu EU tax law. I'm quite sure the EU don't care if Ireland or Apple is the one going to foot that bill, but one of them will. They made that money in the EU and the EU will have those taxes as agreed upon.Under current law any monies not paid to foreign tax authorities and repatriated to the US is taxed at the incremental rate to our rate. That's why Apple and everyone else parks money overseas. It's also why there is a huge push to reduce our rate to 20% and to have a lower repatriation rate around 10% or less.
cite:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/european-debt-crisis-not-just-greece-drowning-debt/