“There should be a public discussion about it”, he said.
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Cook also rejected the assertion by EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager that Apple paid only 0.005 per cent tax in Ireland in 2014.
The European Commission this week ruled that Apple must pay €13bn in back taxes to Ireland for revenues booked through operations based in Ireland. The commission said the deal allowed Apple to pay a maximum tax rate of just 1%. As such, the company allegedly paid a tax rate of 0.005 percent in Ireland throughout 2014 – a figure Cook said is “false” and he has “no idea where the number came from”.
Apple will appeal and Cook believes Ireland will do the same in the interests of protecting future inward investment.
Mr. Cook also said in the interview that he expects Ireland’s government will do “the right thing” and appeal the European Union claw back ruling. “I think we should stand up and say that very clearly”. “Ireland is being picked on and this is unacceptable”, Cook told the newspaper, adding that bias against multinationals from the United States may have been a factor in the decision to impose the bill. “This is due to Apple’s decision to record all sales in Ireland rather than in the countries where the products were sold”, the commission said in a statement on Tuesday. Further talks are planned before it will make a decision.
But Vestager said the numbers were obtained from Apple itself, while others dating from 2011 came from U.S. hearings.
Cook’s stance falls in line with his open letter on the situation from earlier in the week, first providing backstory about Apple’s history in Ireland and then remaining hopeful that the ruling will ultimately be overturned. “We are not going to let an invalid ruling, a politically based ruling, affect our deep commitment to Ireland”, he said.
“In 2014, our worldwide income tax rate was 26.1%.I personally think that’s a reasonable level”, Cook told RTE.
Tax harmonisation is making taxes identical between regions, which can mean increasing tax in low-tax jurisdictions or reducing tax in high-tax jurisdictions.
The tech firm is pressing ahead with plans for expansion in Cork. “It’s clear it comes from a political base and has no basis in fact”, Cook railed in an interview on RTÉ this morning.
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The tax dispute is part of an ongoing fight over whether America’s largest global corporations pay adequate taxes throughout the world.
