A draft motion that will go before Ireland’s parliament next week said the government should appeal the Apple ruling to defend the integrity of Ireland’s tax system, provide tax certainty to businesses and challenge European Union encroachment on member states’ sovereignty.
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Apple faces the record bill after the European Commission ruled that a special scheme to route profits through Ireland was illegal state aid.
In a unanimous but tense vote, Ireland’s government has chose to appeal the European Commission’s recent ruling that saw Apple handed a $14.5 billion fee over tax breaks that were found to be unfairly advantageous over other companies.
The Commission is now actively scrutinising multiple tax opinions given to multinationals in Ireland and focusing on around six that could lead to Apple-style investigations, the Sunday Business Post said, without quoting any sources.
The decision comes amidst a coordinated global initiative to crack down on tax evasion by multinational companies, spearheaded by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The European Commission’s competition arm conducted a sweep of the tax files of several hundred multinational companies on a visit to Dublin a year ago.
But at a cabinet meeting on Friday ministers from all government parties agreed to lodge the appeal.
“We are applying the rules”, he said. It also paid $400 million in current United States corporate taxes on those profits.
The terms of the appeal will now be drafted by the Office of the Attorney General, and the Dail Eireann, lower house of Irish parliament, will meet to debate the issue next Wednesday, according to Ireland’s public broadcaster RTE.
Now Ireland has signalled it will launch a legal challenge after independent members of the cabinet gave their backing.
“The decision is maddening and disappointing”, Cook said in an RTÉ interview. A number of countries have moved to implement some of them measures, but the United States has not.
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Ireland, which plans to appeal the order, has attracted multinationals for many years, offering favorable tax deals to generate investment and employment.
