Decision in EU probe of Apple's Irish tax deals expected in September or October

AppleInsider

Following a meeting with European Commission chief Margrethe Vestager on Tuesday, Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said he expects the EU antitrust regulator to reach a decision in its investigation into Apple's Ireland tax agreements by September or October.

Noonan, who previously guessed the ruling would come sometime this fall, announced the refined timeline estimate during a press conference on Wednesday, reports Reuters.

"Commissioner Vestager indicated to me that there wouldn't be a decision in July but there would probably be a decision early in the autumn. My expectation is September or early October," Noonan said. "I didn't discuss the potential decision but we did discuss the presentation of the decision. I have no indication of what way the decision will go or what the implications of the decision will be."

The Commission has been investigating Apple's tax structure in Ireland for the past two years, questioning whether deals struck in 1991 and 2007 amount to unfair state aid. Ireland entered into agreements offering low tax rates to Apple subsidiaries Apple Operations International, Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe reportedly in exchange for local job generation. Apple funnels overseas revenue through the Irish properties, including its European headquarters in Cork, as part of the infamous "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich" tax avoidance strategy, which according to some estimates saves the company some $9 billion per year.

A preliminary report in 2014 found Ireland's tax favors fell on the wrong side of EU policy, though the tedious process of evidence gathering has delayed a final ruling.

For its part, Apple contends its Irish operations are above board. In January, Apple CFO Luca Maestri went on record as saying a finding of non-culpability would be the only fair outcome to the Commission's probe. That same month, CEO Tim Cook met with Vestager in a closed-door meeting presumed to be in relation to the ongoing investigation.

In an interesting wrinkle, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew recently advocated against the EU's string of antitrust investigations into American corporations like Amazon and Starbucks, claiming the companies were being unjustly targeted. Lew reportedly implored Vestager not to collect back taxes if the Commission finds Apple in the wrong, though whether the antitrust chief was receptive to the call for leniency is unknown.

latifbp

Cue the outrage from economy illiterate Euros and pitchfork pounding about 'Illegal State Aid"

crowley

latifbp said:

economy illiterate

 

latifbp

crowley said:

latifbp said:

economy illiterate

 

There it is in black and white. Anti-trust, right in the article. And Vestager is the anti-trust investigator. You said that this was not about anti-trust and had nothing to do with it in our last debate. Maybe your literally illiterate as well as economically illiterate.

SpamSandwich

Time for Apple to craft a sweet tax deal with Britain and to pull out of the Irish operation. 

crowley

latifbp said:

crowley said:

 

There it is in black and white. Anti-trust, right in the article. And Vestager is the anti-trust investigator. You said that this was not about anti-trust and had nothing to do with it in our last debate. Maybe your literally illiterate as well as economically illiterate

I said nothing of the sort. You must have been in a different debate.

latifbp

crowley said:

latifbp said:

There it is in black and white. Anti-trust, right in the article. And Vestager is the anti-trust investigator. You said that this was not about anti-trust and had nothing to do with it in our last debate. Maybe your literally illiterate as well as economically illiterate

I said nothing of the sort. You must have been in a different debate.

I'll dig that up and post it here for you buddy. 

latifbp

crowley said:

latifbp said:

There it is in black and white. Anti-trust, right in the article. And Vestager is the anti-trust investigator. You said that this was not about anti-trust and had nothing to do with it in our last debate. Maybe your literally illiterate as well as economically illiterate

I said nothing of the sort. You must have been in a different debate.

crowley

latifbp said:

crowley said:

I said nothing of the sort. You must have been in a different debate.

Yes?  I think You're confused again, as the quoted text is pretty clear that any antitrust case against Apple is accusing them of being anti-competitive.  My point in your screenshot was that your language was ambiguous about whether the case itself was antitrust or whether it was about antitrust. Since your broader point in the whole exchange seemed to be about the EU stifling competitiveness then the assumption that you were confused about the point of the regulation seems reasonable.

Of course the case is an antitrust case. That was always obvious to me and any sensible person. If you misunderstood that, well you seem to have misunderstood a lot of things, so let's just chalk it up as another on a long list. 

jackansi

Depending on the outcome of this and the so-far-as-leaked "new" iPhone looking quite like the last two (and breaking an important trend, as seen from Wall Street, for the first time)...

Outcome against Apple (with hits to $$): easily sub-$90 APPL.  

Outcome in favor of Apple (or against with no hits to $$): low-$90s APPL.

What a great buy-in price that will be.

crowley

latifbp said:

Maybe your literally illiterate

Oh man, I missed this in the confusion of making sense of what you were trying to say.  Couldn't ask for a more apt irony 

latifbp

crowley said:

latifbp said:

Yes?  I think You're confused again, as the quoted text is pretty clear that any antitrust case against Apple is accusing them of being anti-competitive.  My point in your screenshot was that your language was ambiguous about whether the case itself was antitrust or whether it was about antitrust. Since your broader point in the whole exchange seemed to be about the EU stifling competitiveness then the assumption that you were confused about the point of the regulation seems reasonable.

Of course the case is an antitrust case. That was always obvious to me and any sensible person. If you misunderstood that, well you seem to have misunderstood a lot of things, so let's just chalk it up as another on a long list. 

In our debate you yourself never identified one company that competed against Apple. Never identified one example of a Euro company that was stifled due to the tax deal. You yourself said that Nokia failed because of 'bad decision making' by allowing itself to be bought by Microsoft, ian Amercian company. So by your definition how is Apple engaged in anything resembling anti-trust? This is my ultimate point. By accusing Apple of acting anti-competitively, against other fictional companies that don't exist (since nobody is competing against Apple in Europe due to selling their company to a U.S. company who by the way was also getting a tax deal so how was Apple getting an advantage?), the EU itself is trying to hobble Apple's ability to be competitive. Just because. I was never saying the EU is engaged in anti-trust, but that by going after boogeyman like they are they are willy-nilly hobbling a companies ability to be competitive in the global market. You're very confused about what I've been trying to say, and that's where there is so much confusion, unless you're acting like you don't know what I'm saying on purpose. Geez! 

crowley

Sorry, there's just too much crap in there for me to respond in a single block; I'm going to need to TS it.

latifbp said:

In our debate you yourself never identified one company that competed against Apple. 

You never asked me to. 
Answer: Samsung.

latifbp said:

Never identified one example of a Euro company that was stifled due to the tax deal. 

You never asked me to, and I don't really have the intimate knowledge needed to answer that.  Other companies wouldn't be "stifled", Apple would have a competitive advantage.  There is no smoking gun for that, which is why an identifiable victim is not usually required for a prosecution in antitrust law.

Besides which, antitrust is not a protectionist law for the benefit of domestic companies, the intention is to preserve competition in the market to benefit consumers.  So whether Apple's competition in the EU is from EU-based companies or other extrnally headquartered companies is besides the point.

latifbp said:

You yourself said that Nokia failed because of 'bad decision making' by allowing itself to be bought by Microsoft, ian Amercian company. So by your definition how is Apple engaged in anything resembling anti-trust? 

My definition?  What definition is that?  I gave what I believe to be the ultimate reason why Nokia failed*.  That doesn't mean that Apple didn't have a competitive advantage over them by virtue of the Irish deal.  The Irish tax rate of 12.5% already gives plenty of advantage over the Finnish rate of 20%; that Apple negotiated a special rate speculated to be effectively around 2% is a massive advantage (and illegal).

* note, this was in an entirely tangential argument where you were spuriously claiming that undefined "burdensome regulation" was responsible for Nokia's downfall and a lack of successful companies in the EU.  And let's be clear, you claimed that European companies were suffering (actually you claimed that startups were not even starting), not because of tax, but because of "burdensome regulation", then, when challenged about what consitutes burdensome regulation, the only regulation you could name was tax.  And then you made a false claim about tax repatriation in the US which you haven't acknowledged.

latifbp said:

By accusing Apple of acting anti-competitively, against other fictional companies that don't exist (since nobody is competing against Apple in Europe due to selling their company to a U.S. company who by the way was also getting a tax deal so how was Apple getting an advantage?), the EU itself is trying to hobble Apple's ability to be competitive. Just because. I was never saying the EU is engaged in anti-trust, but that by going after boogeyman like they are they are willy-nilly hobbling a companies ability to be competitive in the global market. You're very confused about what I've been trying to say, and that's where there is so much confusion, unless you're acting like you don't know what I'm saying on purpose. Geez! 

1. "the EU itself is trying to hobble Apple's ability to be competitive"
2. "I was never saying the EU is engaged in anti-trust"

You literally just said it!  And you call me confused!


P.S. "fictional companies that don't exist" -> Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony, Huawei, in phones; HP, Dell, Samsung, Lenovo in computers; Spotify, Tidal, Google Music in music stores and streaming services.  That's just a small selection of currently active companies in product areas where Apple currently significantly competes in.