“When you’re accused of doing something that is so foreign to your values, it brings out an outrage in you, and that’s how we feel”, he said.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook says that Apple is doing everything it can to address growing concerns over working conditions at its Chinese manufacturing plants on.
He argued, “The biggest and most profitable United States multinationals based in Ireland have evaded countless billions in tax with the active collusion of the Irish government and tax authorities”. As for the assertion that Apple was offered a 0.005% tax rate by Ireland, Cook calls it “total political crap”.
Apple says it paid $400 million in taxes in Ireland in 2014, and another $400 million to the U.S. “We know people have a very high expectation of Apple”, he told hundreds of investment. Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner in charge of competition policy said Apple’s tax deal had “enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years”. He also said the commission was rewriting Apple’s record in Ireland, overriding Irish law and disrupting the worldwide tax system.
Members will have to reach a decision on whether to pursue the unpaid tax and risk the wrath of multinational companies, which the Irish economy depends heavily upon, or to fight the European Union ruling. Apple immediately refuted any wrongdoing and has already said the Irish government will appeal.
Moreover, Apple has provisioned “several billion dollars” from its profits in 2014 to be repatriated to the USA, he said. “And I think that (anti-U.S. sentiment) is one reason why we could have been targeted”.
“We have a court practice that says quite clearly that state aid can come in many forms”.
Despite the mammoth tax bill, Apple insists it will not abandon Ireland, where it has about 6,000 employees and is planning to build a huge data centre. He said Apple chose the Irish city of Cork as its European base 30 years ago and had expanded from 60 workers to nearly 6,000 in Ireland. “Here is the truth, in that year we paid $400m to Ireland and that was based on the statutory rate of 12.5 per cent”.
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The EU country is getting ready to appeal the ruling, Finance Minister Michael Noonan told CNBC on Tuesday, adding he “profoundly” disagreed with the decision. Most importantly, the commission completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of those profits was subject to USA taxation. “If my tax rate fell to.005 percent, I would think I need to have a second look at my tax bill”.
