A levy Tuesday by the European Commission of $14.3 billion plus interest in Irish taxes on the ostensibly USA firm Apple called attention to the loaded question of to whom – if anyone – do large internationally operating firms pay taxes?
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As part of the independents’ support for the appeal Ireland’s corporation tax system is to be reviewed, but it will not include any possibility of a change to the generous and much-maligned rate of 12.5%.
APPLE boss Tim Cook attacked this week’s European Commission ruling against its sweetheart tax deal with Ireland yesterday, calling it “political crap”. Ireland’s finance minister has also criticized the decision, but the government hasn’t officially blessed an appeal.
According to BBC News, the Irish cabinet agreed on Friday, Sept 2, on the decision to appeal the European Union tax ruling.
An Irish government spokesperson said a motion would come before parliament next Wednesday seeking an endorsement.
Apple said it had hired top London law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to appeal against the ruling.
However, opponents said the government should take the tax windfall and make sure big companies were paying their fair share. “It is effectively proposing to replace Irish tax laws with a view of what the Commission thinks the law should have been”.
Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said the appeal was wrong and the Government was siding with big business and showing contempt for ordinary citizens.
The ruling that Apple received preferential treatment amounting to illegal state aid followed a three-year probe into the way in which the firm channels its European sales through Ireland.
EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager talks as she gives a press conference to order Apple to pay 13 billion euros in back taxes, in Brussels on August 30, 2016.
But he’s also previously said that Apple wouldn’t do this until changes to the U.S. tax code offered a more fair rate, something that apparently Cook expects to happen sooner than later. “I think it’s a desire to reallocate taxes that should be paid in the U.S.to the European Union”.
The cabinet decision was unanimous, Noonan said, but the issue itself has sparked a heated discussion among politicians. “We paid $400m in taxes in 2014”.
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The two-year investigation claimed that Apple had paid a tax rate of just 0.005 per cent in 2014, and calculated that the company owed €13bn ($14.5bn) in back taxes.
