Apple is on the hook for 13 billion euros (around $14.5 billion in USA currency) in back taxes owed to Ireland after the European Union ruled the company had dodged its tax obligations by taking advantage of a loophole. In an interview with the Irish Independent, the Apple boss also said he would “love” to see the Irish government launch an appeal against the ruling.
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In a separate interview with the Irish Independent, Mr Cook branded Ms Vestager’s ruling “political crap”. It has no basis in fact or in law, and unfortunately it’s one of those things we have to work through.
He went on: “When you are accused of something that is so foreign to your values, it brings out an outrage in you”.
Cook said a year ago that he would “love to” repatriate Apple’s foreign profits but that he can’t because “it would cost me 40%”.
“That was only possible because of the Irish people, both welcoming us to the community and growing with us”.
Earlier this week European Union competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that Ireland failing to collect taxes from Apple at the standard rate of 12.5 per cent amounted to “state aid” and thus illegally harmed competition across the EU’s single market.
The European Commission rulings appeared to be highly focused on USA companies, Lew said. “They just picked a number from I don’t know where”, he said. It is not true.
However, the European Commission said the rate of 0.005% applied to one of Apple’s subsidiaries.
That’s the surprisingly-mouthy response from Apple CEO Tim Cook when asked for his thoughts on the iPhone company’s whopping €13bn tax bill.
But, Graetz said the USA was right to wait before reacting because using section 891 could be an extreme move.
“We think that it undermines the environment in Europe for global business because it creates uncertainty that ultimately will not be good for the European economy”, Lew said at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Poorer countries like Ireland routinely play tax games in order to attract investment from these massive corporations, because they believe the jobs and spin-off effects are worth it. The EU says some 50-70 billion euros ($56-79 billion) are lost every year due to tax avoidance. And I think the right thing here is to stand up and fight against this over-reach.
“We’re very committed to Ireland, have been for 37 years”.
According to Cook, the EU Commission has sinister plans to control tax rates across the continent and has started this federal coup by picking on Ireland.
Washington has targeted a number of globally operating multinationals based in the U.S., criticizing their policy of transferring profits to low-tax offshore havens as tax avoidance.
Maybe until United States taxes come down or some special tax amnesty is agreed to repatriate hundreds of billions that Apple and others keep off USA shores in the tax equivalent of outer space. The tax deal was first agreed to in 1991 and renewed in 2007.
The U.S. government has countered that European officials are unfairly targeting American companies.
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They do. The European Commission says it’s not interfering with members’ rights to set their corporate tax rates, but that it should help protect countries from unfair tax competition. “This is a decision based on the facts of the case”, she said.
