After having initially been promised for a Christmas deadline, it now appears that both Apple and Ireland will have to wait until February to receive the verdict of European Union regulators on whether or not Ireland has broken international tax rules by letting Apple shelter profits worth tens of billions of dollars there.
“It seems to me that the date for a decision has been put back again; it looks like it will be post-election, rather than pre-election,” Ireland’s finance minister Michael Noonan told a news conference, referring to the parliamentary elections expected to be called for late February.
Ireland is being investigated for allegedly allowing Apple to store its overseas cash pile in the country in exchange for jobs created by the tech company. Recently, Apple announced plans to hire an extra 1,000 employees in Ireland — with the staff joining Apple’s Cork offices by mid-2017, where it currently operates the only Apple-owned manufacturing facility in the world, building Mac computers.
Apple is also helping to fund Irish research toward ocean energy with a €1 million fund, which translates as approximately $1,072,662. This fund is set to commence this year, and will donate €250,000 every year for four years.
Apple is one of several multinational companies having their European tax affairs examined by E.U. antitrust regulators. Tim Cook has always denied any wrongdoing on Apple’s part. During the recent “Inside Apple” episode of 60 Minutes, Cook labelled accusations of tax evasion on Apple’s part as, “total political crap” and said that the company, “pays every tax dollar we owe.”
Recently Apple agreed to pay €318 million ($347 million) to settle a similar tax investigation in Italy.
Source: Reuters
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
3 responses to “Hold onto your seats! Here’s an update on the Apple tax investigation”
There are two things here. The first is (as the article highlights) that Ireland is accused by the EU of providing illegal state subsidies by doing sweetheart deals on tax with Apple and others to get them to move their profits to the Irish tax jurisdiction and give back jobs etc in return (these deals would be beyond the already low business tax rate that exists in Ireland, and which applies to all companies there). This is an issue (primarily) for Ireland.
The second is that Italy (and soon possibly other countries) are accusing Apple of misstating their financials to move profit from the Italian jurisdiction to (guess where) Ireland. This latter issue is one for Apple. Apple have apparently settled with Italy with a big payment, and the question is whether other countries, particularly in the EU will raise similar proceedings.
All a bit murky, but if Tim Cook thinks it is political crap, I’m not sure why he is writing big checks to the Italian government.
majority of Apple’s consumers are in the US…majority of their Apple Stores are in the US…majority of iTunes/apps etc sales are in the US
yet they pay a fraction of our taxes that their own customers have to deal with…bogus
Huh?
Apple pays taxes in US for sales in US. Apple pays reduced taxes in Ireland for EU sales.