Tim Cook told Irish state network RTE in an interview broadcast Thursday that repatriation should occur next year as profits from 2014 are repatriated.
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Apple will still proceed with a planned expansion in Cork, Ireland, Cook told the Irish Independent, but the company also hopes the Irish government will follow Apple’s lead and appeal the ruling.
“We provisioned several billion dollars for the USA for payment for as soon as we repatriate it, and right now I would forecast that repatriation to occur next year”, Cook said in an interview with Irish broadcaster RTE news.
However, according to The Irish Times, Vestager has refuted Cook’s claims that there was a political motive behind the ruling. “They just picked that number from I don’t know where”, Cook said. “In that year, we paid $400 million to Ireland, and that amount of money was based on the statutory Irish income tax rate of 12.5 percent”.
“We have concluded that Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to 13 billion euros to Apple”.
The chief executive dismissed an audit by a Brussels watchdog which found it only paid 0.005% tax in 2014, and claimed the global tech brand paid a worldwide rate of 26.1% on its earnings that year.
After a three-year probe, European Union competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager concluded that Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13 billion ( $14.5 billion) to Apple.
Moreover, Apple has provisioned “several billion dollars” from its profits in 2014 to be repatriated to the United States, he said. In return, Apple brought jobs to Ireland.
Despite the suggestion made earlier in the week that the ruling might damage investment in the EU, Cook was keen to assert that the company will continue investing in Ireland.
He said: “There are other possibilities too, but I think it’s clear that there is a desire to harmonise tax rates across the EU”.
Meanwhile, the US government is furiously looking for means to have tax money from Apple that was obtained by the European Union sent back, according to the New York Times.
USA companies are supposed to pay federal taxes on their global profits, but the tax on money made overseas is only due when it’s brought back to the U.S. The ruling is the EU’s highest ever demand under rules that prohibits companies gaining market advantage through government help.
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Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) chief Tim Cook cranked up his outrage levels today over the EU’s US$14.5bn unpaid tax penalty.
