“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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“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”.
Speaking in Brussels, she also dismissed Tim Cook’s assertion that the Apple tax decision was “political”.
“In 2014 our worldwide income tax rate was 26.1%”, Mr Cook added.
United States tax law allows companies to retain earnings offshore with taxes put off until the money is repatriated, and the sum out there has climbed quickly over the past decade. “Anybody can look at those”.
“Unfortunately, there is no evidence that it increased U.S. investment or jobs, and it cost taxpayers billions”, assistant Treasury secretary Michael Mundaca wrote in 2011. It has been 37 years since Apple launched its operations in Cork. “And that it is where the figures of – in some years – 0.005% of tax rate are accurate”.
“We paid 400 (million dollars) to Ireland (in 2014), we paid 400 to the USA and we provisioned several billion dollars for the USA for payment as soon as we repatriate it and right now I forecast that repatriation to occur next year”, Cook told RTE.
Per the latest updates, both Ireland and Apple intend to appeal against the European Commission’s ruling. But it failed to agree a position, and will meet again on Friday to decide whether to appeal against the Commission’s decision. The Irish tax authority has also disputed the ruling. Charles Schumer, D-New York, calling it a “cheap money grab by the European Commission, targeting US businesses and the USA tax base”.
Apple was found to be holding over $181 billion in accumulated profits offshore, more than any USA company, in a study published previous year by two left-leaning nonprofit groups, a policy critics say is created to avoid paying U.S taxes.
The demand followed an investigation by the Commission, which concluded that the level of tax that Apple was paying in the Irish Republic, where its EU HQ is located, amounted to illegal state aid. We never asked for, nor did we receive, any special deals.
A group of independent lawmakers, whose support is crucial to the minority coalition’s survival, called for a review of how tax is collected from multinationals. “We will appeal and we are confident the decision will be overturned”. Per reports, the country’s finance minister Michael Noonan “disagreed profoundly” with the ruling against Apple. “The figures that we used in our decision are the figures that we got from Apple themselves”, she said.
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Lew said last night that tax laws should make it “impossible” to escape taxes and he sees a growing consensus in the US Congress to move forward with tax reforms. Join us on September 12 as our panel of the world’s top financial experts provide trusted information on the investment risks and opportunities that arise with the upcoming presidential election in November.
