The European Union’s imposition of a 13 billion euro ($14.5 billion) back tax bill on Apple (AAPL.O) is “total political crap”, Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a newspaper interview on Thursday, and anti-U.S. bias may have played a role.
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Irish Times journalist Fintan O’Toole believes that the Commission’s ruling that Ireland recoup the sum of €13 billion in unpaid taxes from Apple.
In an interview on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning, Cook described the ruling as “maddening and disappointing”.
The Commission found that “almost all sales profits recorded by the two companies” were attributed to a head office that “existed only on paper and could not have generated such profits”.
The commission said the deal allowed Apple to pay a maximum tax rate of just 1%.
The minority government led by Noonan’s Fine Gael is reliant on the support of a number of independent lawmakers, a group of whom, the Independent Alliance, said on Tuesday that they were reviewing the decision and would need to further consult with Noonan, tax officials and independent experts.
Apple was found to be holding over US$181 billion in accumulated profits offshore, more than any USA company, in a study published past year by two left-leaning nonprofit groups, a policy critics say is created to avoid paying U.S taxes.
Apple provisions each year USA income taxes on about half of its foreign earnings to cover such a repatriation. It is effectively proposing to replace Irish tax laws with a view of what the Commission thinks the law should have been. More than just lip service, Cook had plenty of nice things to say about the country and the 37-year “deep relationship” it’s had with Apple.
“People in leadership positions in several countries tell me that this is the agenda”.
“What I feel strongly about is that this decision was politically based, of that I’m very confident”.
The European Commission’s Competition chief Margrethe Vestager, asked if she accepted that statement, told a news conference in Brussels: “No, I will not”. “We did it to make sure we have fair competition in Europe”.
He claimed that the EC is picking on Apple, but that the company will continue to invest in its long-established corporate base in Cork, and will work with the Irish government, which also opposes the ruling, to appeal against the decision.
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“We have of course structured the case in a way that it’ll be upheld if it goes to court”.
