Apple has launched its legal challenge against the European Union’s demand of $14 billion in allegedly unpaid back taxes.
In a statement, Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell said Cupertino has been targeted because of its success, implying that European legislators picked on the company for largely symbolic reasons.
Ireland is set to submit its formal appeal of a European Commission ruling that claimed Apple owes the country more than $14 billion in unpaid taxes.
The controversial tax ruling has been opposed by Irish citizens, a majority of whom say they don’t want Apple’s money. Ireland’s Finance Minister Michael Noonan said today that the country’s government has no choice but to appeal.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the eurozone’s finance ministers, has accused Apple of “[failing] to grasp” the public outcry concerning tax avoidance by multinational corporations.
He was referring to last week’s landmark decision, which handed Apple an enormous tax bill of 13 billion euros ($14.52 billion), based on its supposed underpayment of taxes in the Republic of Ireland. Apple paid a reported 0.005 percent tax on its European profits in 2014.
The past week has been one to forget for both Apple and Samsung. While Cupertino was handed a hefty tax bill by the European Commission, Sammy has had to recall every Galaxy Note 7 unit sold so far for fear of them exploding.
But which one will be most damaging, and which will quickly be forgotten? Apple’s tax fight is sure to rage on for months, but will faulty phones leave a bad taste in the mouths of Samsung fans a lot longer?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we discuss the sad start to September for Apple and Samsung.
Tim Cook says that Apple is among the biggest Irish taxpayers, and claims anti-U.S. bias is “one reason” the company was targeted by the European Commission.
Cook was responding to this week’s news, in which Apple was handed an enormous tax bill of €13 billion ($14.52 billion) after an investigation into its reportedly illegal “sweetheart deal” in Ireland, giving it an unfair advantage over rivals.
The headquarters of the ruling government party of Ireland, Fine Gael, was the site of recent apple massacre after angry citizens flocked to the offices to protest Apple’s massive tax breaks.
Members of the youth wing Sinn Fein impaled apples of the orange and red variety on the fences of Fine Gael’s Dublin offices following the revelation from the European Commission that Ireland intentionally lowered Apple’s tax burden.
Check out the horrific scene:
Tim Cook has written an open letter addressing Apple’s enormous tax bill, arguing that the European Union’s demand for €13 billion ($14.52 billion) in unpaid back taxes will have a “profound and harmful effect” on “investment and job creation in Europe.”
At present, Apple employs close to 6,000 people in Ireland, as well as “sustaining” 1.5 million jobs across Europe — including those at Apple and other manufacturers, developers and suppliers who rely on it.
The European Commission has finally finished its investigation into Apple’s tax breaks with Ireland and it appears that the company will be slapped with a fine for more than $1 billion in back taxes.
The commission’s final ruling is expected to come tomorrow, according to a new report that claims Ireland will be expected to calculate exactly how much Apple owes.
Apple will join multinationals Google, McDonald’s and IKEA in defending its European tax deals against E.U. lawmakers this Wednesday.
The hearing concerns whether or not giants like Apple are receiving illegally favorable tax deals, which give them an unfair advantage over local businesses.
Apple could find itself on the receiving end of a hefty $8 billion bill for back taxes as a result of the current European Commission investigation into its tax policies, according to a new report from Bloomberg Intelligence.
If the Commission decides to enforce a tougher accounting standard on Apple, the company may owe taxes at a 12.5 percent rate on the roughly $64.1 billion in profit it generated from 2004 to 2012.
After years of examining the Android operating system, the European Commission has launched a formal antitrust investigation into claims that Google unfairly forces competitors into bundling its own apps on their devices.
Preliminary findings by the European Commission have slammed Apple and Ireland for a so-called “sweetheart” tax deal which allowed Apple to avoid paying taxes by building up a massive offshore cash pile of $137.7bn in the country.
The deal dates back to 1991, and allowed Ireland to provide Apple with illegal state aid. Apple has had a base in the country since 1980.
In a statement, the European Commission said that “the Irish authorities confer an advantage on Apple,” and that this “advantage is obtained every year and ongoing.”
The European Commission today gave its approval to Apple’s $3 billion takeover of Beats Electronics and Beats Music. The regulator concluded that the two companies are not close competitors, and that the headphones they sell are “markedly different in function and design.”
Europeans will next year be able to take their smartphones anywhere within the EU and enjoy calls, texts, and data without paying a penny more than they do at home. Expensive roaming fees are set to be scrapped by July 1, 2014, after the European Commission voted to fast-track a major overhaul of telecoms regulation.
The European Commission’s Vice President for Competition Policy, Joaquín Almunia, has confirmed that it will charge Samsung “very soon” in an antitrust patent case after the Korean electronics giant broke competition rules by filing patent-infringement lawsuits against Apple. Samsung has been under investigation since January for a possible breach of antitrust rules, and earlier this week, it dropped all of its injunction requests against Apple in Europe.
Korean electronics giant Samsung has today announced that it will drop its patent-infringement lawsuits against Apple in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The announcement comes just hours after Apple was denied its request to have 26 Samsung devices banned in the United States — though the two cases are unrelated.
Following the unveiling of the iPhone 5 and a new family of iPods on Wednesday, Apple has begun selling a new Lightning to Micro USB adapter for customers in Europe. As its name suggests, the adaptor allows users to charge and sync their new iOS device using a Micro USB cable — in compliance with the rules laid out by European Commission.
Apple has lost an appeal against a court ruling in Germany to have its iCloud push services restored. The service was disabled back in February after it was ruled that Apple had infringed on patents owned by Motorola Mobility. While iCloud is still available, users now have to open up their Mail app and fetch new email manually, or set their device to fetch email at certain intervals.