Tag Archives: Apple Tax bill

Apple’s European headquarters in Cork

Bloomberg reports:

Ireland is being sued by the European Union authorities for failing to collect a year-old bill of as much as 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) from Apple Inc. in a move that risks escalating tensions over the nation’s tax policies.

The European Commission on Wednesday referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to recoup the Apple bill…

…The dispute is part of a two-year-old crackdown by regulators on questionable tax deals — often involving American tech companies — throughout the EU. On Wednesday, Vestager also ordered Amazon.com Inc. to pay 250 million euros ($294 million) plus interest in back taxes to Luxembourg.

In the Irish case, until the money is recovered, Apple continues to get an illegal advantage, Vestager said.

EU sues Ireland over Apple bill as tax tensions flare up (Bloomberg)

Previously: The €13billion Apple Tax Bill

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Apple’s European headquarters in Cork

Further to report yesterday saying one unnamed minister suggested the Apple tax bill would amount to just €100million – as opposed to the €19billion previously estimated…

In the last few minutes.

Tony Connolly, of RTÉ, reported on the Today with Seán O’Rourke Show:

“We can establish that the amount of money that Ireland and Apple, or the amount of tax, rather, that the [EU] Commission believes Apple should have paid amounts to the sum of €13billion over a ten-year period.”

“That is a staggering figure – €13billion – that the Commission believes that Apple should have paid to Ireland and they said the fact that they didn’t, that this amounts to illegal state aid. Another line that I can tell you is that the Commission believes that between that, in that period, Apple paid an effective tax rate of 1%, then falling to an effective tax rate of 0.005% in 2013.”

“…So that’s what the Commission are saying. They’re going to give more details in that news conference [at 11am] in the next 15 minutes…”

Commission says Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13bn to Apple (RTE)

Previously: Far From The Tree

Low Rates And Not Too Many Questions

UPDATE:

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European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager at a news conference this afternoon in light of the Apple tax finding

“…the profit between each Irish branch and the company’s head office or I should say so-called head office because this so-called head office only existed on paper. It has no employees, it has no premises and it has no real activities.”

“The Irish branch was subject to normal Irish corporation tax. However, the head office was subject to no tax in Ireland or elsewhere. This was possible under Irish law which, until 2013, allowed for so-called stateless companies.”

“As a result of the allocation method, in the tax rulings, only a fraction of the profits from the Apple Sales International were attributed to the Irish branch. The remainder, the vast majority of profits was attributed to the so-called head office.”

“This means that Apple Sales International, as a whole, paid very little tax on its profits.”

“Let me illustrate for one tax year: In 2011, Apple Sales International made a profit of €16billion – less than €50million were allocated to the Irish branch, the rest, the huge majority, was allocated to the so-called head office where they remained untaxed.”

“This means that Apple’s effective tax rate, in 2011, was 0.05%. TO put that in perspective, it means that for every €1million in profits, it paid just €500 in taxes. This effective tax rate dropped further to as little as 0.005% in 2014, which means that even less was paid in taxes, it was €50 per €1million in profit.”

Morto.