The US tech giant has been ordered to pay Ireland up to €19bn in back taxes and interest charges in a landmark decision by EU’s financial watchdog. “There should be a public discussion about it”.
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Responding to Cook’s comments, European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestager called on Apple and Ireland to allow the release of the details of the confidential ruling.
Cook said past year that he would “love to” repatriate Apple’s foreign profits but that he can’t because “it would cost me 40%”. In the year that the EC says we paid that tax figure, we actually paid $400m.
Ireland must recover undue tax benefits of up to €13 bn granted to Apple, the EU Commission said Tuesday.
“I know what we are obliged to do and that is to take decisions that are independent, based on the treaty, the fact of the case and can be checked by the European courts”, Vestager said. “We haven’t done anything wrong, and the Irish government hasn’t done anything wrong”. Ireland’s Independent Alliance party says it is reviewing the decision and needs to consult with Noonan, tax officials, and independent experts. He is also very confident that the Commission’s ruling will be overturned on appeal. Vestager responded that “the figures we used in our decision were figures we got from Apple themselves and from the 2011 United States hearings.Very little if any figures were in the public domain”, she said.
“The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the worldwide tax system in the process”, the company said.
The EU no doubt sees itself as standing up to big-footed USA tech behemoths, but there’s a risk that this strategy could backfire badly, and cause the big four to invest their billions elsewhere. “And I think that (anti-U.S. sentiment) is one reason why we could have been targeted”. Apple paid just 0.005% on European profits in 2014. “Some people would say that that should be higher and some might say it should be lower”.
In addition, Apple has provisioned “several billion dollars” from its profits in 2014 to be repatriated to the U.S., he said. “But it should be talked about going forward, not in a way that retrofits the law to what others wish it was”.
Apple still planned to go ahead with an expansion in Cork, he said. “We’re subject to the statutory rate in Ireland of 12.5pc, we paid $400m in taxes in 2014”.
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Apple has a deal with Ireland to locate much of its earnings there in return for creating jobs.
