redhanded

singularity said:

sog35 said:

singularity said:

sog35 said:

FACT:  Any other company headquartered in Ireland could have used the same tax strategy as Apple.

If someone can dispute this then the EU has a case and Apple should pay the $14 billion.

But Tim Cook was 100% clear that Apple was not given a special deal:  "The opinion issued on August 30th alleges that Ireland gave Apple a special deal on our taxes. This claim has no basis in fact or in law. We never asked for, nor did we receive, any special deals." Tim Cook

Yup any company headquartered in Ireland could have got the same deal if they had the same agreement with the Irish tax authority. Which were secret and other companies were not privy to.

You are wrong. There was no secret deal with Apple. Tim Cook said it himself.

"The opinion issued on August 30th alleges that Ireland gave Apple a special deal on our taxes. This claim has no basis in fact or in law. We never asked for, nor did we receive, any special deals." Tim Cook

Apple was following WELL ESTABLISH IRISH TAX RULES that does not levy taxes on income booked in subsidiaries of Irish companies that are outside the state. Those are LAWS that are clear and were available to any corp.

As it stands pending all the appeals those tax rules aren't allowed. The agreements were invalid and are null and void. Thus the ruling.

singularity said:

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 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.

From the summary. which I linked earlier in the thread. It does contain difficult words but try to comprehend. The rule they have broken is under EU law and thus the agreements are invalid (pending any appeals).

gatorguy said:

redhanded said:

Being pedantic, 0.005 isn't an actual tax rate, the EU judgement says it was the effective tax rate.

So it seems that Apple have a mind numbingly complex set of corporate entities and the Irish tax authorities made a ruling that Apple could allocate the vast majority of their profits to a corporate entity that didn't pay tax while a much smaller amount of profits were allocated to another entity that paid tax at the Irish corporate rate which is 12.5%.

The EU are basically saying that everything should have been taxed at 12.5%.

Expect this to go to appeal with an argument if the ruling about allocation of profits was correct or not. The Irish government will back their own tax department. 

Do you think their citizen's will too?  There's certainly little to no benefit for them when a wealthy corporation is permitted to completely avoid taxation while they themselves are not. The Irish politicians that choose to get involved will be walking a fine line.