“It has no basis in fact or in law”.
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Cook told the newspaper in an interview he would work closely with Ireland to try to overturn the decision and said the USA tech giant was committed to its operations in Ireland.
A group of independent lawmakers in Ireland’s government want their coalition partners to commit to reviewing how tax is collected from multinationals before it considers appealing an European Union ruling against tax dealings with Apple.
The company reported in 2014 an effective tax rate of 26.1% on its world-wide profits, including the foreign tax provisions that are unpaid, a level Mr. Cook described as “reasonable”. That’s how we feel.
The cabinet met on Wednesday but failed to reach agreement and will meet again on Friday as it puzzles over whether to accept the unprecedented windfall ordered by Brussels.
There have been calls for the Dail parliament in Dublin to be recalled to debate the issue with left-leaning groups insisting the billions should go towards public services. He told Irish television that the EU’s findings are “maddening” and that the company had not received special treatment from Irish authorities.
No one did anything wrong here and we need to stand together. The point is that the decision, which ruled that Ireland gave Apple favorable tax deals in contravention of European Community regulations, is just the beginning of the EU’s war on global tech giants like Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. “I don’t think the multinationals should be afraid of that”.
“The European Commission treated it as abnormal state aid. the European Commission is doing its job”, Sapin told a news conference.
In a separate interview with the Irish Independent, Mr Cook branded Commissioner Margrethe Vestager’s ruling “political crap”.
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“I’m very confident that the courts will take a nonpolitical view of this and come to the right decision”, he said. “We are not going to let an invalid ruling, a politically based ruling, affect our deep commitment to Ireland”.
