
Apple’s Cook Confident of Victory in Tax Fight as Irish Dither - MorningGlory
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-01/apple-s-cook-confident-of-victory-in-tax-fight-as-irish-dither
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jernfrost
I am a big fan of both Apple and Google and what sort of technologies and
products they have created. However they are also major representatives of the
problems with multinational companies which are able to pit nations against
each other and gain grossly unfair advantages which smaller or local companies
can never achieve.

Apple and Google both make great products and should beat the competition
based on those skills, not based on their ability rally armies of lawyers and
shift money around different sub-branches in different countries.

Their behavior is undermining free trade. How do you get nations to agree to
free trade if it just allows multinationals to rig the system. I've been a big
supporter of free trade, but I am seriously starting to get my doubts. I am
not sure if the advantages make up for the disadvantages anymore.

Of course I am not advocating that everybody is self-sufficient, but that
international trade might benefit more from more restrictions than exists
today, unless we can solve the problem of multinationals abuse the system by
using tax paradises, tax loopholes etc.

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throwaway1974
I am Irish and work in tech BUT I do not know how to feel about this fiasco.

On one hand:

* Personal taxes and various hidden charges (and no we do not have free healthcare like the NHS, unless you are unemployed) are massive

* Small companies such as mine do not get any special treatment and have to pay corporate tax at 12.5%, its unfair Apple get preferential treatment

* 13 billion would go a long way to solving all sorts of issues this country faces (tho it seems other countries want some of this money...)

On the other hand:

* The EU seems to be overstepping its bounds and trying a powergrab, last two times I voted YES on EU referendums we had clear promises that EU will not involve themselves in a members tax policy, i feel I was lied to.

* Apple (and pretty much any large company you can think of) are here in Ireland and do hire boatloads of people, who in turn spend the money in the economy

* Without our low corporate rates Ireland would be yet another impoverished peripheral EU state (as it was for long time) like Greece, minus the sun and with loads of rain :(

So yeh I can see the moral and the pragmatist arguments being made on both
sides of the debate, but can not decide yet where I fall.

tl.dr: Its complicated...

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rjsw
The 12.5% corporate tax rate is still one of the lowest in the EU, why would
the jobs go elsewhere ?

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neximo64
The EU is after EU level tax harmonisation. The fact they went after Apple is
kind of a precedent for others.

How would other firms be confident their taxes wont retroactively change? The
Irish government is in no position to provide guarantees.

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NetStrikeForce
Could you please substantiate your claim that the EU is going after tax
harmonisation? For starters, all the facts point to non-intervention,
including the topic discussed here.

Also, it wouldn't make sense. A normalisation maybe, but harmonisation is
stupid and a sure way of creating poverty, turmoil and destroying the EU
market by removing jobs hence consumers.

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andy_ppp
I love how, as soon as paying money is involved, double think becomes a real
thing and people loose their ability to think rationally.

When Tim Cook accuses the EU of pulling a 0.005% tax rate out of nowhere and
then counters it with a $400 million dollars actually paid in "tax" I think
he's being totally unclear as to what the "tax" he's talking about is and
where it came from . Is it even the same thing the EU were talking about? I
highly doubt they paid $400 million in _corporation_ tax in Ireland.

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jeremysmyth
I'm quite impressed by the following facts:

\- The EU ruling finds that Ireland broke the law.

\- The penalty is that Ireland gets a boatload of money.

\- Ireland is appealing the ruling.

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philliphaydon
Ireland could either:

1) win and things continue as they are 2) lose, and leave the EU 3) lose, and
Apple and 1000s of other companies leave Ireland and Ireland loses in the Long
run.

If the EU wants taxes to be paid they need to fix local tax laws not chase
businesses to pay. Fix why companies offshore this stuff to begin with. Taxes
are too high.

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masklinn
> If the EU wants taxes to be paid

Taxes are a red herring, the EU doesn't see this dispute as a tax issue but as
a competition issue (which is why it's understood as state aid not as tax
policy): by giving them special tax arrangements Ireland is unfairly
advantaging Apple against other businesses of the Common Market which don't
get to pay sub-unit corporate tax.

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philliphaydon
Sure. So if Australia wants taxes paid in Australia. Be competitive and keep
the money local. But Australia doesn't want to be competitive. They keep their
high taxes and capital gains so people don't want to own businesses or pay
taxes in Australia.

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masklinn
Wat? The issue at hand isn't low taxes, the commission is just fine with
Ireland having low corporate tax, the issue is _a special tax deal for
specific companies_ , that's what isn't allowed under EU law on state aid.

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philliphaydon
An issue that wouldn't exist if taxes were not so high to begin with. It's
naive to assume this is about special treatment alone.

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NetStrikeForce
Apple is free to not sell or operate in the EU, the taxes are just the
equivalent fee Amazon or EBay charges you to operate in their markets. If
Apple thinks it's too high, no problem, sell somewhere else until the European
countries decide it's worth lowering taxes.

It's a free market after all and that's what the EU is fighting to keep. I'm
extremely surprised to see so many Americans against it - it's the root of
your very own system. I guess it's just misinformation.

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philliphaydon
I'm not American, and that's not what the EU is fighting to keep. If the EU
doesn't like that Ireland gave a special deal, then the EU needs to work on
becoming competitive, instead of trying to throw it's weight around.

If the EU gets it's way, it's Ireland that loses, not Apple.

The EU was a brilliant idea that has been poorly executed and it should be
disbanded completely.

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NetStrikeForce
The EU is arguably the biggest market in the world, why wouldn't it use that
for the benefit of its citizens? Same way Apple uses its weight to cut better
deals with its providers and the countries it operates in.

~~~
philliphaydon
It doesn't benefit it's citizen with the exception of free roam.

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Oletros
Well, he also was confident of victory in the lawsuit about collusion with
publishers.

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GrumpyNl
If they dont scam the Irish out of tax money, it would be the USA. Just pay
your taxes where you are supposed to pay them. All these roads are to avoid
paying taxes.

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philliphaydon
Or fix local taxes so there's no reason to send money off shore.

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nodamage
Interestingly, it looks like Tim Cook is directly challenging the 0.005% tax
rate claim that the EU commission made:

    
    
        "They just picked a number from I don't know where. In the year that 
        the Commission says we paid that tax figure, we actually paid $400m. 
        We believe that makes us the highest taxpayer in Ireland that year."
    
        ...
    
        Cook also said the 0.005pc tax rate it is accused of paying the Commission
        is a “false number”.
    
        “I have no idea where the number came from. Here is the truth, in that year
        we paid $400m to Ireland and that was based on the statutory rate of 12.5pc.”
    

[http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/no-one-did-
anything...](http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/no-one-did-anything-
wrong-here-and-ireland-is-being-picked-on-it-is-total-political-
crap-35012145.html)

~~~
cobrophy
I'm suspicious that he's arguing against the tax rate by giving a flat figure
rather than an alternative rate he believes is true.

~~~
robmcm
> we paid $400m to Ireland and that was based on the statutory rate of 12.5pc

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aidos
Interesting page here regarding Apple's employment (apparently 5.5k people in
IE) [http://www.apple.com/ie/job-creation/](http://www.apple.com/ie/job-
creation/)

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ricksplat
As an Irish person, I can only look on in bewilderment.

Yes, it's certain that Apple is getting a sweet deal on tax. The tax that's
under discussion is for their "European Sales Office" which was allowed to
repatriate profits to some "Head Office" in the sky which was not subject to
tax.

I guess what this all boils down to is the taxation on these sales within
Europe, so the whole "Designed in California, made in China" argument is moot,
since they are "Sold in Europe". Thems the rules and by internationally
accepted standards they are reasonable.

But, to say that _Ireland_ is owed 15 Billion is disingenuous in the extreme.
The EC does not (yet) have jurisdiction over our taxation, so we can
effectively tax them however we damn well like. That's why this is being spun
as a _" competition"_ issue - the contention is that Apple got a deal that
other companies couldn't have got.

The public finances are hurting a lot in Ireland the last few years so the
thought of trousering such a huge amount is indeed appealing, but if this
revolves around the ethics of Apple's taxation, there's also counter-balancing
ethics around the fact that we didn't actually do anything to earn it, aside
from perhaps providing a low-tax platform for Apple to sell into Europe.

So to whom is the tax owed? To "Europe" it would seem. But Europe doesn't
collect its own taxes. So they expect us to be their tax collector? WTF
seriously guys?

Apple could easily give us the money without batting an eyelid. In fact I'd
like it if they did just "give" it to us, but the format of the exchange under
discussion is one that undermines our sovereignty all other foreign investment
programmes that we have got going on.

Then there's the whole thing of them telling us we can spend the money however
we want, which everybody just knows is a PR stunt to try and force our hand.
As soon as we take it, there'll be some new eurocrat standing on a podium
telling us something else about how it has to be paid into some European fund
or other.

In this light I believe Apple's position that the EC are just making it up as
they go along carries some water.

So what are we doing? We're publicly going to challenge the ruling, which
should certainly be challenged, but should we really be the ones doing the
challenging?

Nobody is a "good guy" here. They're just a bunch of asshats squabbling over
money but I'll tell you one thing - if there was an ally that I wanted to keep
onside for the future, if I had to choose, it wouldn't be the EC.

To recap:

\- Apple should be paying more tax.

\- Ireland needs the money. But more importantly we have an economy and
business relationships that we'd like to keep intact thank you very much.

\- The EC are a bunch of turncoats who I wouldn't trust as far as I could
throw them.

All variables considered I'd keep Apple in Cork, but try to squeeze a good bit
more money out of them in the near term.

