Thankfully this isn’t a final decision and the EU will appeal, and it’s widely expected for the top EU court to rule against Apple, you cannot lay 0.005% corporate tax when the standard is 12% the country and claim you thought it was normal. That’s a clear abuse of state aide rules and also so is having an office that exists in paper only. They also have a PO Box in the Netherlands for all iTunes sales.. If Apple doesn’t want to pay its taxes then it can’t use roads, emergency services, bin collection, all other services provided by the local councils etc etc and the people of Ireland shouldn’t be made to pay for Apples shortfall either. The only money the government has it was it gets in taxes, and 12 billion is a noticeable dent in that.
Just like it was widely expected that Ireland and Apple would lose this appeal - oh wait....!
You really need to understand the ruling before commenting, because this decision make it far more likely that Ireland and Apple will prevail.
Apple's only crime was essentially receiving stolen goods -- where Ireland undercut EU taxation rules.
But, if nothing else, this points out the absurdity of international taxation rules -- where a company can fabricate a "headquarters" in some low taxation environment and then operate in other, better established countries and take advantage of the societal advantages there -- societal advantages reaped from infrastructure and stability from a strong central government supported by an adequate revenue stream.
This is not new: companies have been locating fake headquarters in Caribbean tax havens for decades. In fact, that area featured prominently in the causes of the 2008 Great Recession where bad loans were packaged into highly rated CDO's in these Caribbean shelters and sold to unsuspecting buyers. Essentially, it is one country bypassing international rules to benefit itself -- much like any organized crime family does the same.
It is past time that international taxation conventions be modernized to insure that companies (not just Apple) pay for the benefits they receive in the countries they operate in.
I’m confused about what “international taxation rules” you are referring to. I believe each independent nation is entitled to establish their own tax laws and regulations - or did I miss something.
I must point out that Delaware has no corporate taxes and many US companies choose to place their headquarters in that state for that reason. I don’t see anyone screaming about how unfair that is.
Delaware is widely considered to be a tax haven, and there are plenty of people who are opposed to such practises.
OK. So a few are screaming about it. But Delaware violates no federal law and you’d need a constitutional amendment to change that. Similarly, the EU case is really about the limits of EU law over individual nation states within the EU.
That's correct. Different states tax different things, e.g., sales, property, incomes, corporate profits and in different combinations, in order to manage their budgets. Delaware is is the corporate favorite for incorporation (70% of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated there) primarily because: (i) all corporate law in the US is at the state level (i.e., not federal); (ii) rulings on corporate law by the widely-respected Delaware Chancery has become the de facto US corporate law; (iii) the state of Delaware gets a fair amount of annual revenue from incorporation fees.
Good info on Delaware and how the state generates revenue elsewhere. Both Delaware and Ireland represent valid alternatives in the marketplace of ideas on how to govern. They stand as examples of different ways of working with corporations for the benefit of those they represent.
Unfortunately, forces in both the EU and the US would like to shut down alternatives in the name of “harmonization” on the assumption that differences in local governments are inherently unfair to other governments within the larger federal structure.
This is troubling for several reasons. Shutting down all alternatives limits visibility of what works and what does not work in government. Forbidding experimentation and innovation in government would risk further institutionalization of older and perhaps less efficient government practices, making improvements even harder to implement. The issue of fairness is also without merit since any local government can choose the modernize their revenue generating machine any time they like. What is unfair is one local government choosing to impose their particular solution on everyone else.
I wonder if the EU's halfhearted effort to prosecute this has to do with the fact that Ireland is at the front line of Brexit. No need to pile on the small loyal state that will need all the help it can past December 31st. At this time there is a high chance of a closed border between NI and Ireland once the looming hard Brexit comes true. With that would come societal pain, economic pain, geographic isolation, and need for assistance. And hopefully no violence added to the mix. Instead the EU is probably more focused on being more vigilant in preventing such deals in the future. The investigation into this matter started before the Brexit vote, it is a different set of circumstances for Ireland now. Let's see if there is any Brexit deal at all and then how hard the EU appeals this.
Margrethe Vestager and the European Commission will have to try an alternate tack if they are to prevail against Ireland and Apple. The court has determined that the evidence they presented did not demonstrate that Ireland gave Apple a special tax deal. That avenue is now closed to them should they chose to appeal the ruling.
Good news, it was obvious that the EU were on a money grab and trying to retroactively change the law to do so imho. I’m not saying Apple and Ireland will ultimately win even though I do not believe for a minute Apple broke the law. I do believe the EU will more than ever given recent economic events do anything they can get to as much as they can from anywhere they can.
This has been gone over many times, there is no retroactive changing of the law, the law came into force in 1992 (I believe it was Maastricht) and Ireland should have adjusted its tax relationship with Apple at the time. Just because it has taken a number of years for the case to be brought doesn't mean the law has been changed in any way. It is Ireland that is accused of breaking EU law, not Apple; Apple was merely the beneficiary. Also, the EU will not "get" anything much from this - if Apple and Ireland loses the case then the money held in escrow is payable to the tax authorities in Ireland, not the EU.
Again, this has been covered many times. Please stop spreading misinformation.
You're the one spreading misinformation, I am afraid. If the money gets credited to Ireland, that is money in the bank for the EU since they will have to send a smaller annual check to the country (Ireland is a net recipient of EU largesse).
Moreover, if Apple had lost, the long run consequences for Ireland, by making is less competitive as a destination for US tech investment, might have been for more onerous. You're ignoring some basic facts here.
Ireland is a net contributor to the EU, and has been for a while.
As for the comment you were replying to, the law used against Ireland was state aid, not that they had too low a taxation level. Which isn't something that is a competency of the EU.
Ireland didn't turn positive in its net contributions to the EU until recently (2018, I think). During the period 2014-2016 (when the case was being brought), Ireland was a net recipient (see below for actual EU -- not Irish Times -- data). Ireland was even more of a net recipient during the period of the supposed "preferential tax treatment", i.e., the period that is actually being litigated (which I believe was the 2000s through the early 2010s).
I recall discussion in the media then about how, if the EU won the case, Ireland might have had to fork over the money to the EU because of its cumulative net recipient status.
+
Dont know where that map came from, do you have a source? In any case its from 2014-2016.
Umm... you're joking, right?
Am I joking? No. You falsely claimed that Ireland was a net recipient of EU aid. Which hasn't been true for a while. I knew that and replied. It's also irrelevant to the whole topic here but I tend to distrust arguments that contain claims I know are untrue, even if I can't verify the rest of the claims. So I merely pointed out that you are incorrect. Finding that Ireland was a net recipient in 1980, 1990 or even 2010 doesn't really amount to much of a defence.
Here is what you originally said:
You're the one spreading misinformation, I am afraid. If the money gets credited to Ireland, that is money in the bank for the EU since they will have to send a smaller annual check to the country (Ireland is a net recipient of EU largesse).
You now seem to have moved to goalposts to 2010-2014 but this isn't what you claimed. Clearly you said the payment would have an effect on the net transfers to Ireland were the money credited to Ireland ( i.e. this year).
Good news, it was obvious that the EU were on a money grab and trying to retroactively change the law to do so imho. I’m not saying Apple and Ireland will ultimately win even though I do not believe for a minute Apple broke the law. I do believe the EU will more than ever given recent economic events do anything they can get to as much as they can from anywhere they can.
This has been gone over many times, there is no retroactive changing of the law, the law came into force in 1992 (I believe it was Maastricht) and Ireland should have adjusted its tax relationship with Apple at the time. Just because it has taken a number of years for the case to be brought doesn't mean the law has been changed in any way. It is Ireland that is accused of breaking EU law, not Apple; Apple was merely the beneficiary. Also, the EU will not "get" anything much from this - if Apple and Ireland loses the case then the money held in escrow is payable to the tax authorities in Ireland, not the EU.
Again, this has been covered many times. Please stop spreading misinformation.
No. Ireland should NOT have adjusted their tax rate in 1992. That is a fundamental misreading of the law. Margrethe Vestager misread it and the court agreed. The Maastricht Treaty never mandated tax harmonization between the nations of the EU.
Excerpt from The Spectator: “The EU has been using tech regulation, and competition policy, as a cover for a naked, federalising power grab. Let’s take the Apple case as an example. The company is perfectly entitled to base a lot of its operations in Ireland, which happens to have a very low corporate tax rate (just 12.5 per cent). Low taxes are one of the ways that what used to be a slightly damp island on the far west of Europe has made itself one of the richer countries in the world.”
Ireland was always perfectly happy with Apple’s taxes. It paid what it owed in full. And Apple was quite happy to base itself there, and employ lots of people. And then the EU came along, and tried to redefine that as 'state aid' and slapped it with a huge bill. It is hardly the first time that has happened. The Commission has already lost a similar case against Starbucks, and Google is quite rightly appealing against the billions in fines that have been imposed upon it (its lawyers must be smiling this morning).”
Whether you happen to approve of big American companies or not isn’t really the point, whatever the EU’s defenders try to maintain. In reality, under the existing treaties, aside from VAT, Ireland is allowed to charge any taxes it wants. If the Commission wants an EU-wide corporate tax it should argue for it, and change the treaties openly. Instead, it has been trying to do it in secret, and with lots of spin, but, as it has just discovered, without any legal basis.”
The EU often tries to portray itself as a 'rules-based' organisation. But it is increasingly acting outside the law. It has now lost a whole series of key cases, and in its own courts as well.”
Right the real problem here isnt that Apple should or should not be paying more taxes. It probably should be paying more in fact, in Europe. And maybe taxes should be equalised across the EU. Maybe there is a need for a digital tax.
But this is underhand nonsense, a redefinition of State Aid, all the more appalling as State Aid goes on all the time in the EU. I mean banks were bailed out in 2008. Covid payments are a form of state aid.
Your reply clearly illustrates the idea that taxation must be punitive instead of minimal and favorable to business growth wherever businesses are located.
I'm not sure what you're asking. But Apple used Ireland as a base of operations in Europe for a number of reasons. One of those was the friendly nature of Irish tax policies. Ireland had, quite intentionally, set up its tax policy to be attractive to foreign businesses. As I indicated previously, the rule whereby non-Irish branches of Irish corporations weren't taxed on their earnings by Ireland was an outlier. It was a way by which Ireland competed with other taxing jurisdictions to attract economic activity. It allowed Apple and others to, quite legally, avoid taxation on meaningful portions of its foreign earnings.
The idea that Apple funneled profits through Ireland is just standard international tax policy stuff - nothing at all unusual or improper about that. That has to do with how governments - for a long time and for good reasons - have taxed income, as distinguishing between economic activity which occurs within their countries or as trade coming into and out of their countries. It isn't the result of loopholes, it has to do with that being the sensible way for countries to fairly tax income (as opposed to sales) without each country stepping all over the others when it comes to who gets to tax which economic activity.
The part which allowed Apple to effectively avoid a lot of taxation was Ireland's atypical tax rules and comparably low tax rate, not the fact that Apple used Ireland to 'sell into' rather than 'sell within' much of Europe. That later part is just trade, as distinguished from domestic economic activity.
Then you had a situation where the U.S. was still (quite inexplicably) extra-territorial when it came to income taxation. By that I mean, the U.S. still thought it was okay to tax economic activity that happened elsewhere if it was a U.S. company doing it. Most advanced economies had already abandoned such extra-territorial taxation policies. But even though the U.S. presumed to tax earnings made elsewhere, that taxation was deferred until those earnings were repatriated. So that allowed Apple to avoid (or defer) U.S. taxation of Irish earnings even though the effective rate those earnings had been taxed at by Ireland was quite low. Apple can't do that any more for a number of reasons.
That article isn't solely about the Irish. Did you read it?
Not yet. Are you asking me to comment on its accuracy or the fairness of its characterizations?
I will if you want me to. But that doesn't seem all that important to me. What's important to me is the reality of the situation, e.g. how various aspects of tax policy work.
That article has everything to do with Apple's tax policy and the reality of the situation regarding the repatriation of funds and the US taxes due on those profits. Why would you think it unimportant?
I should probably be clear here on what I'm saying and not saying. An article like that is of little use to me, because I have no way of knowing whether something they say is accurate.
It doesn't include any links to source materials I don't know the author from Adam. If they're going to defer to what others have said or what certain documents show, then what they say only has real value to me if they link to such things. I need specific information that might add to my understanding.
Still not interested? Then you only think you already know it all if you're being genuine in your comments.
I read that piece. I'm still not sure why you wanted me to read it unless you wanted me to comment on its accuracy. You had asked how something worked and I tried to explain it. Then you posted a link to that article asking how it played in. So maybe you were suggesting that it somehow contradicted what I had said? At any rate, I'll return briefly to that in a moment.
First though I'd like to say a few other things. For one, my stated objections were just telling you why reading that article wasn't important to me - why it wouldn't help my understanding of the situation. I would either already know what it said or, for the things I didn't know but which it was asserting, I'd have no way of knowing whether I could trust what it said. So, for me, it wasn't important to read the article. If you wanted me to read the article to offer my opinion of its accuracy, I'd have been happy to do that when I had time - and I eventually did. The article may otherwise have value to others, just not for me - it doesn't help with the way I go about trying to understand things I'm interested in.
For another, the second article you posted (which reads a lot like the first one) doesn't include useful links. It still doesn't link to the documents it references. It had some generic links to other (news?) websites. But that doesn't do me any good. They should link directly to the documents they are quoting from or characterizing. That way someone who cares to understand what they're talking about - or to judge their accuracy or fairness - can look at those documents for themselves. As it turns out I don't need those links as I'm already familiar with the documents in question and they don't really support some of the assertions the article makes later.
For another, your link about the writer doesn't do me much good. I'm not necessarily doubting his professionalism. But I still don't know him from Adam. Regardless of who he writes for or what else he's written (if I haven't read it), I don't know that I can trust him to be accurate and fair in his explanations. There aren't many people for whom I take what they say at face value. And for them, it's because I've heard or read them enough to feel confident that they're honest and understand the subjects they talk or write about. I've read and heard too much from other people that is bunk to just trust stuff others write or say without first seeing enough from them to assess them. When I read stuff from people I don't already have confidence in, it's not typically for the accuracy of what they're saying - it's for pointers. What they say may cause me to think about something such that I'll go try to sort out the reality of it for myself.
All that said, about the article in the NYT... It talks about some things we already covered. But it does a poor job of explaining how certain things work. It's also flat wrong about some things. Further, it's quite misleading about the Jersey situation. Either the author himself doesn't understand how certain things work with international tax law or he's intentionally trying to mislead people - trying to conflate different issues. I'm happy to explain in greater detail if you're genuinely interested. But the reality is that Apple didn't shift foreign earnings out of Ireland in order to continue avoiding paying taxes on them. What the article suggests (or speculates) happened doesn't make sense if you understand the changes that Ireland made to its tax policies in 2014.
The move the article suggests would both not work (Ireland doesn't even have a double taxation treaty with Jersey, as far as I'm aware) and not be needed. The reality is that Apple started paying a lot more in foreign income taxes when Ireland changed its tax policies - an amount that's about right if it started paying Ireland's statutory rate on income from outside the Americas. In other words, Apple effectively accepted the changes rather than trying to (or succeeding in) designing some new scheme to avoid that taxation. The move to Jersey (for a part of Apple's operation, but not the parts the article suggests) was, best I can tell, an effort to avoid the possibility of a conflict relating to foreign passive income (e.g. interest earned on cash holdings) as a result of the changes Ireland made to tax residency rules. Based on those changes, Apple might have been required to pay income taxes on that passive income to Ireland rather than to the U.S., it's always paid them to the latter because that's what U.S. law requires.
Apple did what it needed to in order to keep paying those taxes to the United States. But it otherwise accepted tax residency in Ireland which would mean paying far more in corporation taxes in Ireland. The Jersey move wouldn't work to avoid taxation (as Apple previously had) on foreign earnings (i.e. non-passive) both because of the changes Ireland made and because of the changes the U.S. made with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
I'm not sure what you're asking. But Apple used Ireland as a base of operations in Europe for a number of reasons. One of those was the friendly nature of Irish tax policies. Ireland had, quite intentionally, set up its tax policy to be attractive to foreign businesses. As I indicated previously, the rule whereby non-Irish branches of Irish corporations weren't taxed on their earnings by Ireland was an outlier. It was a way by which Ireland competed with other taxing jurisdictions to attract economic activity. It allowed Apple and others to, quite legally, avoid taxation on meaningful portions of its foreign earnings.
The idea that Apple funneled profits through Ireland is just standard international tax policy stuff - nothing at all unusual or improper about that. That has to do with how governments - for a long time and for good reasons - have taxed income, as distinguishing between economic activity which occurs within their countries or as trade coming into and out of their countries. It isn't the result of loopholes, it has to do with that being the sensible way for countries to fairly tax income (as opposed to sales) without each country stepping all over the others when it comes to who gets to tax which economic activity.
The part which allowed Apple to effectively avoid a lot of taxation was Ireland's atypical tax rules and comparably low tax rate, not the fact that Apple used Ireland to 'sell into' rather than 'sell within' much of Europe. That later part is just trade, as distinguished from domestic economic activity.
Then you had a situation where the U.S. was still (quite inexplicably) extra-territorial when it came to income taxation. By that I mean, the U.S. still thought it was okay to tax economic activity that happened elsewhere if it was a U.S. company doing it. Most advanced economies had already abandoned such extra-territorial taxation policies. But even though the U.S. presumed to tax earnings made elsewhere, that taxation was deferred until those earnings were repatriated. So that allowed Apple to avoid (or defer) U.S. taxation of Irish earnings even though the effective rate those earnings had been taxed at by Ireland was quite low. Apple can't do that any more for a number of reasons.
That article isn't solely about the Irish. Did you read it because if you did not of course you don't know what I'm asking. If you did I've no idea why you're confused.
Two of the three Irish subsidiaries originally involved when the EU made it's initial tax inquiries are no longer based in Ireland, and for reasons explained in the article. They are now resident in Jersey off the coast of France. Why? That's in the article too. Why did one remain in Ireland? That's also explained in the article. What does it have to do with Apple and taxes? Everything as far as I can tell but that's why I was looking for your views on it. In your opinion does it serve to shield money held by them from any tax obligations whatsoever both abroad and in the US? If you're either a tax accountant or lawyer all the better.
I just noticed this post. You apparently edited it after I'd responded to it, so I never saw all the commentary you added. That's unfortunate as it might have saved me the other response because it's now clear to me the point you were trying to make and what you were asking me.
It isn't true that those Irish subsidiaries are no longer based in Ireland. That's one of the things the article gets wrong.
As for your question about serving to shield money from any tax obligations... the answer would be no. I see know where the confusion was. It's why it didn't make sense that you'd post that article in response to what I'd explained. The article talks about things that happened in 2014, after Ireland changed its tax policies but before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. As I indicated, with the TCJA those earnings which hadn't be repatriated were deemed repatriated. So it no longer matters whether Apple repatriates those earnings, it will have to pay U.S. taxes on them. That reality isn't reflected in that article because it and what it talks about came prior to the TCJA.
The point of the Jersey move, as I indicated in the other post, wasn't to avoid taxation on future foreign earnings. With the changes to Irish tax laws Apple had to start paying more taxes on the earnings of its Irish subsidiaries, and it has done that. The point of the move to Jersey was so that Apple could continue to pay taxes to the U.S. for the income which it made off of its foreign cash holdings - so called Subpart F income. Even if it didn't repatriate certain foreign earnings, it had to pay U.S. income taxes on the money it made off of holding those earnings - e.g., interest it earned on them. That was an exception in U.S. law to the ability to defer paying U.S. income taxes on foreign earnings which weren't yet repatriated. With the changes Ireland made, Apple's Irish subsidiaries were going to become tax resident in Ireland and thus Apple would have had to pay Ireland taxes on that passive income which came from cash Apple was holding in them. And the taxes Apple paid to Ireland would have reduced what it paid to the U.S. So it moved the (or some of the) foreign cash holdings. That didn't change the taxes Apple paid, it just kept them being paid to the U.S.
But as I've previously suggested, that doesn't matter as much now. Apple could move those holdings to the U.S. parent corporation if it wanted to now (I don't know whether it has, or how much it has). It has to pay so-called repatriation taxes on them now anyway.
Good news, it was obvious that the EU were on a money grab and trying to retroactively change the law to do so imho. I’m not saying Apple and Ireland will ultimately win even though I do not believe for a minute Apple broke the law. I do believe the EU will more than ever given recent economic events do anything they can get to as much as they can from anywhere they can.
This has been gone over many times, there is no retroactive changing of the law, the law came into force in 1992 (I believe it was Maastricht) and Ireland should have adjusted its tax relationship with Apple at the time. Just because it has taken a number of years for the case to be brought doesn't mean the law has been changed in any way. It is Ireland that is accused of breaking EU law, not Apple; Apple was merely the beneficiary. Also, the EU will not "get" anything much from this - if Apple and Ireland loses the case then the money held in escrow is payable to the tax authorities in Ireland, not the EU.
Again, this has been covered many times. Please stop spreading misinformation.
No. Ireland should NOT have adjusted their tax rate in 1992. That is a fundamental misreading of the law. Margrethe Vestager misread it and the court agreed. The Maastricht Treaty never mandated tax harmonization between the nations of the EU.
Excerpt from The Spectator: “The EU has been using tech regulation, and competition policy, as a cover for a naked, federalising power grab. Let’s take the Apple case as an example. The company is perfectly entitled to base a lot of its operations in Ireland, which happens to have a very low corporate tax rate (just 12.5 per cent). Low taxes are one of the ways that what used to be a slightly damp island on the far west of Europe has made itself one of the richer countries in the world.”
Ireland was always perfectly happy with Apple’s taxes. It paid what it owed in full. And Apple was quite happy to base itself there, and employ lots of people. And then the EU came along, and tried to redefine that as 'state aid' and slapped it with a huge bill. It is hardly the first time that has happened. The Commission has already lost a similar case against Starbucks, and Google is quite rightly appealing against the billions in fines that have been imposed upon it (its lawyers must be smiling this morning).”
Whether you happen to approve of big American companies or not isn’t really the point, whatever the EU’s defenders try to maintain. In reality, under the existing treaties, aside from VAT, Ireland is allowed to charge any taxes it wants. If the Commission wants an EU-wide corporate tax it should argue for it, and change the treaties openly. Instead, it has been trying to do it in secret, and with lots of spin, but, as it has just discovered, without any legal basis.”
The EU often tries to portray itself as a 'rules-based' organisation. But it is increasingly acting outside the law. It has now lost a whole series of key cases, and in its own courts as well.”
Right the real problem here isnt that Apple should or should not be paying more taxes. It probably should be paying more in fact, in Europe. And maybe taxes should be equalised across the EU. Maybe there is a need for a digital tax.
But this is underhand nonsense, a redefinition of State Aid, all the more appalling as State Aid goes on all the time in the EU. I mean banks were bailed out in 2008. Covid payments are a form of state aid.
Your reply clearly illustrates the idea that taxation must be punitive instead of minimal and favorable to business growth wherever businesses are located.
never mentioned punitive at all, which would be subjective anyway.
Comments
You really need to understand the ruling before commenting, because this decision make it far more likely that Ireland and Apple will prevail.
Unfortunately, forces in both the EU and the US would like to shut down alternatives in the name of “harmonization” on the assumption that differences in local governments are inherently unfair to other governments within the larger federal structure.
This is troubling for several reasons. Shutting down all alternatives limits visibility of what works and what does not work in government. Forbidding experimentation and innovation in government would risk further institutionalization of older and perhaps less efficient government practices, making improvements even harder to implement. The issue of fairness is also without merit since any local government can choose the modernize their revenue generating machine any time they like. What is unfair is one local government choosing to impose their particular solution on everyone else.
Here is what you originally said:
You're the one spreading misinformation, I am afraid. If the money gets credited to Ireland, that is money in the bank for the EU since they will have to send a smaller annual check to the country (Ireland is a net recipient of EU largesse).
You now seem to have moved to goalposts to 2010-2014 but this isn't what you claimed. Clearly you said the payment would have an effect on the net transfers to Ireland were the money credited to Ireland ( i.e. this year).
First though I'd like to say a few other things. For one, my stated objections were just telling you why reading that article wasn't important to me - why it wouldn't help my understanding of the situation. I would either already know what it said or, for the things I didn't know but which it was asserting, I'd have no way of knowing whether I could trust what it said. So, for me, it wasn't important to read the article. If you wanted me to read the article to offer my opinion of its accuracy, I'd have been happy to do that when I had time - and I eventually did. The article may otherwise have value to others, just not for me - it doesn't help with the way I go about trying to understand things I'm interested in.
For another, the second article you posted (which reads a lot like the first one) doesn't include useful links. It still doesn't link to the documents it references. It had some generic links to other (news?) websites. But that doesn't do me any good. They should link directly to the documents they are quoting from or characterizing. That way someone who cares to understand what they're talking about - or to judge their accuracy or fairness - can look at those documents for themselves. As it turns out I don't need those links as I'm already familiar with the documents in question and they don't really support some of the assertions the article makes later.
For another, your link about the writer doesn't do me much good. I'm not necessarily doubting his professionalism. But I still don't know him from Adam. Regardless of who he writes for or what else he's written (if I haven't read it), I don't know that I can trust him to be accurate and fair in his explanations. There aren't many people for whom I take what they say at face value. And for them, it's because I've heard or read them enough to feel confident that they're honest and understand the subjects they talk or write about. I've read and heard too much from other people that is bunk to just trust stuff others write or say without first seeing enough from them to assess them. When I read stuff from people I don't already have confidence in, it's not typically for the accuracy of what they're saying - it's for pointers. What they say may cause me to think about something such that I'll go try to sort out the reality of it for myself.
All that said, about the article in the NYT... It talks about some things we already covered. But it does a poor job of explaining how certain things work. It's also flat wrong about some things. Further, it's quite misleading about the Jersey situation. Either the author himself doesn't understand how certain things work with international tax law or he's intentionally trying to mislead people - trying to conflate different issues. I'm happy to explain in greater detail if you're genuinely interested. But the reality is that Apple didn't shift foreign earnings out of Ireland in order to continue avoiding paying taxes on them. What the article suggests (or speculates) happened doesn't make sense if you understand the changes that Ireland made to its tax policies in 2014.
The move the article suggests would both not work (Ireland doesn't even have a double taxation treaty with Jersey, as far as I'm aware) and not be needed. The reality is that Apple started paying a lot more in foreign income taxes when Ireland changed its tax policies - an amount that's about right if it started paying Ireland's statutory rate on income from outside the Americas. In other words, Apple effectively accepted the changes rather than trying to (or succeeding in) designing some new scheme to avoid that taxation. The move to Jersey (for a part of Apple's operation, but not the parts the article suggests) was, best I can tell, an effort to avoid the possibility of a conflict relating to foreign passive income (e.g. interest earned on cash holdings) as a result of the changes Ireland made to tax residency rules. Based on those changes, Apple might have been required to pay income taxes on that passive income to Ireland rather than to the U.S., it's always paid them to the latter because that's what U.S. law requires.
Apple did what it needed to in order to keep paying those taxes to the United States. But it otherwise accepted tax residency in Ireland which would mean paying far more in corporation taxes in Ireland. The Jersey move wouldn't work to avoid taxation (as Apple previously had) on foreign earnings (i.e. non-passive) both because of the changes Ireland made and because of the changes the U.S. made with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
It isn't true that those Irish subsidiaries are no longer based in Ireland. That's one of the things the article gets wrong.
As for your question about serving to shield money from any tax obligations... the answer would be no. I see know where the confusion was. It's why it didn't make sense that you'd post that article in response to what I'd explained. The article talks about things that happened in 2014, after Ireland changed its tax policies but before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. As I indicated, with the TCJA those earnings which hadn't be repatriated were deemed repatriated. So it no longer matters whether Apple repatriates those earnings, it will have to pay U.S. taxes on them. That reality isn't reflected in that article because it and what it talks about came prior to the TCJA.
The point of the Jersey move, as I indicated in the other post, wasn't to avoid taxation on future foreign earnings. With the changes to Irish tax laws Apple had to start paying more taxes on the earnings of its Irish subsidiaries, and it has done that. The point of the move to Jersey was so that Apple could continue to pay taxes to the U.S. for the income which it made off of its foreign cash holdings - so called Subpart F income. Even if it didn't repatriate certain foreign earnings, it had to pay U.S. income taxes on the money it made off of holding those earnings - e.g., interest it earned on them. That was an exception in U.S. law to the ability to defer paying U.S. income taxes on foreign earnings which weren't yet repatriated. With the changes Ireland made, Apple's Irish subsidiaries were going to become tax resident in Ireland and thus Apple would have had to pay Ireland taxes on that passive income which came from cash Apple was holding in them. And the taxes Apple paid to Ireland would have reduced what it paid to the U.S. So it moved the (or some of the) foreign cash holdings. That didn't change the taxes Apple paid, it just kept them being paid to the U.S.
But as I've previously suggested, that doesn't matter as much now. Apple could move those holdings to the U.S. parent corporation if it wanted to now (I don't know whether it has, or how much it has). It has to pay so-called repatriation taxes on them now anyway.