singularity

sog35 said:

Ireland has the right to charge any tax rate it wishes. 
Ireland has the right to make certain corporations exempt from taxes. (exa. hospitals, foreign corps and charity organizations)
Ireland has the right to lower taxable profits for certain products or services. (exa. software products)

These are the rights of a SOVEREIGN STATE.

The EU has no right to decide what kind of tax policy Ireland uses. 
The only enforcement power the EU has is if a specific company can break Irish tax laws while other companies can't. 
Apple has not broken a SINGLE IRISH TAX LAW. That means any other company could have done the EXACT same things Apple had done and achieve the same lower tax rate.

This decision by the EU is saying that Ireland no longer has the SOVEREIGN right to decide what taxes they can charge.  This is madness. The EU is and was never suppose to be the ULTIMATE TAXING AUTHORITY of Europe. Its absolutely ridiculous. 

sog35 said:

cnocbui said:

sog35 said:

The EU still refuses to state what law Apple broke.

All they are saying is Apple paid a too low effective tax rate. That is totally ridiculous. Any other company could have used the same provisions Apple used to lower their effective tax rate. 

This ruling is so ridiculous its obvious it will be thrown out. 

Ireland has the right to charge what ever tax rate they wish. They also have the right to decide on the other finer points of tax law. This decision is saying Ireland does not have the right. This decision is saying the EU can swoop in 10 years after the fact and change Ireland's soverign tax laws if they feel it goes against their opinion of matters. In other words the opinion of a few beaucrates in the EU is worth more than the entire citizenship of Ireland. Crazy.

Shut up.  I know that I have personally explained this to you several times.  You are just ignoring reality as it would give you less to be indignant about and would deflate your hissy fits.  You want Apple to be the victim when they aren't.

State the law that Apple broke.
You still have not.
You are just saying general things like "oh they paid too little tax". 
Paying too little tax is not a LAW.

Show me the Irish law that Apple broke.

You won't be able too. Because even the EU says nothing about what law Apple broke.

Tax rulings as such are perfectly legal. They are comfort letters issued by tax authorities to give a company clarity on how its corporate tax will be calculated or on the use of special tax provisions.
The role of EU state aid control is to ensure Member States do not give selected companies a better tax treatment than others, via tax rulings or otherwise. More specifically, profits must be allocated between companies in a corporate group, and between different parts of the same company, in a way that reflects economic reality. This means that the allocation should be in line with arrangements that take place under commercial conditions between independent businesses (so-called "arm's length principle").
In particular, the Commission's state aid investigation concerned two consecutive tax rulings issued by Ireland, which endorsed a method to internally allocate profits within Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe,two Irish incorporated companies. It assessed whether this endorsed method to calculate the taxable profits of each company in Ireland gave Apple an undue advantage that is illegal under EU state aid rules.
The Commission's investigation has shown that the tax rulings issued by Ireland endorsed an artificial internal allocation of profits within Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe,which has no factual or economic justification. As a result of the tax rulings, most sales profits of Apple Sales International were allocated to its "head office" when this "head office" had no operating capacity to handle and manage the distribution business, or any other substantive business for that matter. Only the Irish branch of Apple Sales International had the capacity to generate any income from trading, i.e. from the distribution of Apple products. Therefore, the sales profits of Apple Sales International should have been recorded with the Irish branch and taxed there.
The "head office" did not have any employees or own premises. The only activities that can be associated with the "head offices" are limited decisions taken by its directors (many of which were at the same time working full-time as executives for Apple Inc.) on the distribution of dividends, administrative arrangements and cash management. These activities generated profits in terms of interest that, based on the Commission's assessment, are the only profits which can be attributed to the "head offices".
Similarly, only the Irish branch of Apple Operations Europe had the capacity to generate any income from trading, i.e. from the production of certain lines of computers for the Apple group. Therefore, sales profits of Apple Operation Europe should have been recorded with the Irish branch and taxed there.
On this basis, the Commission concluded that the tax rulings issued by Ireland endorsed an artificial allocation of Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe's sales profits to their "head offices", where they were not taxed. As a result, the tax rulings enabled Apple to pay substantially less tax than other companies, which is illegal under EU state aid rules.
This decision does not call into question Ireland's general tax system or its corporate tax rate.Furthermore, Apple's tax structure in Europe as such, and whether profits could have been recorded in the countries where the sales effectively took place, are not issues covered by EU state aid rules.

mac_128 said:

No wait! 

"SEE" refers to how we will listen to our music without a headphone jack! We'll simply look at the screen and view streaming digital code and let our brains translate it to music.