I read through the first part of the ruling to get a better idea of what happened. Apparently, Apple wrote to the Irish tax authorities, and said "this is how we plan to calculate our taxes" and the Irish tax authority said "okay, no problem, that works for us" and the EU commission investigated some years later, and said "wait, was that method of calculating taxes available to all Irish companies? We don't think so, so now Ireland has to collect taxes from all the way back many years." Ireland said "no bro, we're all good, they don't owe us anything", and Apple said "wait, we just did what we were told to do, and we already paid taxes on that income in the US instead of the EU, you can't retroactively change the rules" and the EU top court just said "Sorry, those tax rules go against EU law, and yes we can"
I kind of agree, but I'm not an EU citizen and don't have any say in EU laws, so whatever :) If I were Apple, I would be a little miffed at this situation, though. It certainly makes me question whether or not I want to ever expand into the EU. But tax laws are too damn complicated in most other countries too. so maybe just budget for government incompetence?
The EU isn't going to get the taxes (certainly not the vast majority of them). They just ruled that it isn't OK for Apple to have been given this tax break via specific accounting rules. It's Ireland that gets the windfall, whether it wants it or not.
Other countries in the EU, however, can sue ireland for taxes they missed out on. Which is probably what will happen. The money will be divided up over many countries.
On what basis exactly? Income is taxed where the company (Apple subsidiary) is headquartered, so they would have to prove Apple would have chosen a different country, which is not going to happen.
> you can't retroactively change rules ... yes we can
Hence, fewer US companies will have significant production in the EU in general, and possibly Ireland in particular. Let's hope it will help native European industries flourish %)
They didn't retroactively change the rules. They retroactively found a contract invalid. I'd file this under "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" as it sounds like Apple tried to talk Ireland into giving it special treatment that wasn't actually legally possible under EU law and the EU found out and told them they can't actually do that after Ireland agreed.
If I get a tax agency worker to sign me a piece of paper that says I don't ever have to pay any taxes, I can insist that they said so all I want but I'll still owe the back taxes when someone finds out because that person had no authority to say I don't.
Also capital flight doesn't actually work like that no matter how often people parrot it. Ireland is the European HQ for US tech companies because they need a European HQ to access the extremely lucrative market and Ireland is willing to go to great lengths (clearly including "agreeing to conditions they can't legally agree to) to attract them to go there in particular. If Ireland becomes less attractive that means they will be more likely to go elsewhere but their European HQ will still be in the EU/EEA because that's what it's for. This wasn't a case of Ireland competing for Europe where Ireland losing is a loss to all of the EU, it was Ireland competing against other EU countries.
