French court denies Apple injunction against tax protests
A Parisian court has blocked Apple's attempt to prevent Attac -- the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizen's Action -- from staging protests at the company's French retail stores.
As part of a recent lawsuit, Apple had been seeking a three-year ban under the threat of a 150,000-euro fine, MacGeneration said on Friday. The company was also pursuing 3,000 euros in damages following a wave of protests in December.
The court found however that Apple couldn't identify any immediate damages, and ordered Apple to pay Attac 2,000 euros in legal fees.
In a statement, Attac argued that simply entering places like Apple Opera "without violence, without degradation, and without blocking the access of the store to shoppers" didn't cause any damages, and was not a valid reason for limiting Attac's freedoms.
In fact images and video from the Opera protest showed no permanent impact. The closest thing to violence was when Attac originally entered the store, since some shoving took place.
Apple is known to use elaborate loopholes to pay minimal taxes on its overseas revenue. In August 2016, though, the European Commission ordered Ireland to collect billions in back taxes, charging that it had extended preferential tax arrangements -- something illegal under E.U. law. The Irish government has been slow to collect the money, prompting the Commission to take it to court.
As part of a recent lawsuit, Apple had been seeking a three-year ban under the threat of a 150,000-euro fine, MacGeneration said on Friday. The company was also pursuing 3,000 euros in damages following a wave of protests in December.
The court found however that Apple couldn't identify any immediate damages, and ordered Apple to pay Attac 2,000 euros in legal fees.
In a statement, Attac argued that simply entering places like Apple Opera "without violence, without degradation, and without blocking the access of the store to shoppers" didn't cause any damages, and was not a valid reason for limiting Attac's freedoms.
In fact images and video from the Opera protest showed no permanent impact. The closest thing to violence was when Attac originally entered the store, since some shoving took place.
Apple is known to use elaborate loopholes to pay minimal taxes on its overseas revenue. In August 2016, though, the European Commission ordered Ireland to collect billions in back taxes, charging that it had extended preferential tax arrangements -- something illegal under E.U. law. The Irish government has been slow to collect the money, prompting the Commission to take it to court.
Comments
Oh BTW, "Apple is known to use elaborate loopholes" is called following the tax laws. It's not Apple's fault the loopholes exist.
If only we could audit these TAX Moralists and see if they pay more then they have to, or do things to get them to be taxed more then need be.
Edit for replacing a wrong word used.
Not in this globalized world, they don’t.
That, doesn't mean other angles aren't also valid such as ''the spirit of the law'. Something that is being used with more success of late.
And while Apple and many others have taken advantage of loopholes, it is no less true that it has been accused of bigger things. I wouldn't call its bigger problems with the EU loophole problems nor many other cases involving taxes where it has opted to settle rather than fight.
To make matters worse IMO, Tim Cook initially defended the company by speaking of Apple's 'values'. That is the kind of stance that actually leads to the actions of attac because when someone throws a phrase (as part of a defence) like 'we pay more taxes than anyone else', people say 'what has that got to do with anything?', especially when it was later revealed that in some cases Apple was effectively deciding - all by itself - how much to make taxable in the first place, so when they say 'we pay all taxes due', the phrase only serves to make certain collectives even angrier.
AI's reference is OK with me.
As for Apple, I would simply use the 'reserves the right of admission' stance to refuse them entry
1. An entrepreneur creates new, useful for customers (aka the people) business.
2. Gov-t deems it public, since "people like it a lot".
3. The owner now does not have the full control over his property he created.
4. Gov-t can cut coupons for being wise and stuff.
Isn't it just great? I swear I saw that schema working somewhere else (not for long though)... but where was it...
You are correct about that. It’s more “Your wealth now belongs to the state. Resist and you will be executed.” than it is a voluntary redistribution, anyway.
lol!
lol
Which isn’t constitutional, but is beside the point.
As an aside and not connected to politics, just the French, I have never got over the shock of seeing French farmers stopping British trucks (lorries) in France loaded with sheep and burning them alive as a protest against British imports.