The Paris bombings, the million plus refugees flooding into Europe, The rapes and assaults on women in Cologne, can all be traced back to the neo-conns and their puppet president.
Forcing a sovereign nation to recover taxes from companies who followed all tax laws will not end well for the EU. I guarantee you within the next few years, all the EU countries will be at each others throats. It's not going to be pretty when Europe's leaders learn once again that centralized planning does not work.
The problem is exactly the LACK OF CENTRALIZED PLANNING, and thus individual countries trying to lure away companies with unfair taxation. The thing is, tax rates are up to each country, but they can't cut a deal for Starbucks which they don't cut with little Joe's coffee shop around the corner. So tax deal that are selective for only certain companies are illegal, and companies who took them should have known that they are in violation of EU laws, governments involved as participants notwithstanding. On the other had using existing tax loopholes which apply to everyone to pay lower taxes isn't illegal, and while I don't like these loopholes, it's the legislature's problem and going after companies who do their duty towards shareholders by optimizing taxes is just a populist move by politicians who want to score some cheap points with voters. The commingling of these two issues, which aside from resulting in lower tax bills have nothing in common, is either propaganda or a sign of people not having a clue what they are writing about,
Thus, should Apple have engaged in tax deals violating equality clauses of EU law, then they deserve to be taxed retroactively, since their tax bills never were legal to begin with. On the other had exploiting pre existing tax loopholes is perfectly legal, and if politicians don't like how little taxes some companies end up paying as a result, all they need to do is to change the laws. Taxing retroactively in these cases would be a travesty against justice.
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The thing is, tax rates are up to each country, but they can't cut a deal for Starbucks which they don't cut with little Joe's coffee shop around the corner.
So tax deal that are selective for only certain companies are illegal, and companies who took them should have known that they are in violation of EU laws, governments involved as participants notwithstanding.
On the other had using existing tax loopholes which apply to everyone to pay lower taxes isn't illegal, and while I don't like these loopholes, it's the legislature's problem and going after companies who do their duty towards shareholders by optimizing taxes is just a populist move by politicians who want to score some cheap points with voters.
The commingling of these two issues, which aside from resulting in lower tax bills have nothing in common, is either propaganda or a sign of people not having a clue what they are writing about,
Thus, should Apple have engaged in tax deals violating equality clauses of EU law, then they deserve to be taxed retroactively, since their tax bills never were legal to begin with.
On the other had exploiting pre existing tax loopholes is perfectly legal, and if politicians don't like how little taxes some companies end up paying as a result, all they need to do is to change the laws. Taxing retroactively in these cases would be a travesty against justice.