Posted on 05/01/2015 5:26:52 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Apple Inc. said the European Commission’s investigation into Ireland’s tax treatment of multinationals could have a “material” impact if it was determined that Dublin’s tax policies represented unfair state aid.
Apple said that if the EU’s investigations concluded against Ireland, the company could be required to pay past taxes for up to 10 years “reflective of the disallowed state aid.”
The EU began a formal investigation against Ireland in June last year for alleged state aid to Apple. …
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
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For the "state aid" to be illegal, it had to be offered as an incentive preferentially to specific, target companies and not be available to other companies. Apple claims it did not accept any such specific targeted tax benefits, using only the tax laws as written in Ireland, available to all companies in that nation. They have opened their books to the investigators.
Ireland should tell the EU to “shove it”!
Microsoft did their packaging in Ireland for years due to the low tax rate.
Microsoft did their packaging in Ireland for years due to the low tax rate.
So did a lot of European Multinationals. This is the Socialists of the EU seeing an opportunity to seize the already taxed assets of lots of corporations by forcing Ireland to change their tax laws to comport more with the EU's averages.
The EU is griping because Ireland has attracted so many U.S. Companies ... so they’re trying to get back at Ireland!
— — —
EU to Investigate Corporate Tax Codes in Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands
Through its competitive tax rate, Ireland has attracted large amounts of investments and jobs from U.S. and other international companies. Ireland is still struggling to recover from the property and banking crash that struck in 2008, and those international investments made over many years have helped soften the economic effects of the crisis.
U.S. companies have used the country as a base for production aimed at European and international markets for many decades. The American Chamber of Commerce in Ireland has estimated that U.S.-owned companies in Ireland produced goods and services worth over $55 billion and says that U.S. companies are so prevalent that Ireland is strategically important to “corporate America.”
Funny thing, Angry Elephant. . . while I was responding to you, my girlfriend and I were watching a nature program on Netflix and the subject on the screen was. . . wait for it. . . an Angry Elephant facing down a growling tiger!!!
LOL!
Ireland finds support for corporate tax policies
http://www.irishexaminer.com/business/ireland-finds-support-for-corporate-tax-policies-327194.html
Ireland found itself surrounded by supporters, for the first time, on the issue of corporate tax rates, during an informal meeting of EU finance ministers.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan was not present, as he returned to Dublin early, but the head of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan and a number of the Government’s tax experts attended.
Usually, nobody mentions tax rates, other than to complain about the low rates in some countries, notably Ireland’s 12.5%, partly because the setting of tax rates is a national competence over which the EU has no say.
However, the reality is that some big countries, and especially Germany and France, have been promoting policies at EU level that would eventually effect the tax rates applied by different member states.
With proposals on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) due from the OECD later this year, and with the European Commission due to relaunch the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base in June, the issue is now coming to the surface.
The ministers gave the political green light also to tougher new rules that say every country must immediately communicate the tax arrangements they reach with big companies.
Ireland has removed some of the incentives for companies to set up a base in the country — such as allowing them to be ‘stateless’ for tax purposes, or avail of the ‘double Irish’ — that led to huge criticism from fellow EU members. And while the Department of Finance is co-operating both with the OECD and the various EU committees working on tax issues, they are very wary of tax harmonisation being introduced by the back door.
There was no big showdown at the weekend meeting in Riga as ministers discussed what are complex technical issues, but two faultlines appeared openly for the first time.
One was on the issue of tax harmonisation. Countries including Belgium, Malta, and the Netherlands, said that as small countries they needed advantages to attract business and since the euro rules do not permit many of the usual incentives to be used, tax was the only “tool in their arsenal”.
Apple pays 2% corporate income tax,
because it’s profits magiccaly show up in Ireland.
don’t believe me?
go here.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-reduces-what-it-pays-in-taxes-2013-5
BI leans left. Walter Hickey also writes for The Atlantic.
And frankly, the USA’s corporate tax rate ought to be 2 percent or even less, not 35 percent. The EU is trying to bully Ireland into “harmonizing” with certain other EU countries at a 25% corporate tax rate.
We elephants might look friendly, but we can be mighty tough sometimes!
I don't believe you, or them, because their claims have been debunked multiple times with audited records. Being a publicly traded corporation, ALL of Apple's Financial Records are available on their website for your and anyone's perusal. The taxes they pay are listed on the Quarterly 10-Qs and the Annual 10-Ks. These reports always include their total Tax Expenditures. Sorry, you and they are just plain wrong.
Apple's effective tax rate, after all deductions and credits were taken, was 26.8% laat year . . . and shows on it's audited books.
Apple paid $1 out of $40 of corporate income taxes in the United States in 2012, the year they were talking about, and in fact paid more than any other US business that year in US Income taxes. . . and that is how LIBERALS LIE.
That 2% rate is not the income tax rate on money earned on EARNED REVENUES. The 2% rate is on assets they ALREADY have paid Income taxes on when it was earned and is approximately the CAPITAL GAINS tax rate in Ireland on income from invested earnings.
Apple's assets in the United States have NOT been transferred to Ireland.
Income earned in the USA has been kept in the United States. It is illegal to transfer money out of the USA like these bozos claimed. Check with the DEA on that. That claim in the report was what caused Apple to be called into a Senate subcommittee on the claim that Apple did not pay any US Income Taxes. Apple did not sell those goods in the United States, and DID pay income taxes in the countries where Apple products were sold, provided audited tax returns showing the taxes where they were sold, and showed these tax returns to Congress.
The claim that Apple had no employees in Ireland was also shown to be completely bogus. Ireland has thousands of Apple employees and has had for years. Oops.
What these European Union Liberal Weenies are wanting to do is to force Ireland to change their tax codes and rates that have made Ireland a success in business. . . and make them a failure like the rest of the Socialist Countries in the EU, like Greece, Spain, and the other failed experiments of the Liberals.
These are facts, not the mis-information promulgated by Liberals who wanted to raid already taxed money legally held by every international corporation.
This is how you tell LOW INFORMATION VOTERS that Apple did not pay Income taxes. Apple's assets in the United States have NOT been transferred to Ireland. They have been kept in the United States.
Nothing "magic" about it. Those are all POST TAX PROFITS. Would you have preferred that Apple had put their profits in Greek banks, where the Greek Government announced one morning that 10% of all bank accounts were forthwith confiscated because the government needed the funds??? That happened. All socialist countries salivated over that move and several US Congress Critters introduced bills to allow that move in the US. . . and it IS incorporated into Obamacare!
here is how the world works.
Apple-of-Ireland orders a smartphone from its
Chicomm supplier, the cost is about $50.
Apple-of-the-US ‘’’buys’’’ that smartphone
for $400 from Apple-Ireland, even though
Apple-Ireland has done next to nothing.
.................
all the markup happens offshore
No, that is NOT how it works, RockyTx. Apple does not buy it from Ireland. The Europeans buy it from ireland Apple. Quit talking about something you do not have a clue about. I do. I am an ex CEO, educated as an Economist, and know how to read Financials. It's obvious you don't have the faintest idea what you are talking about except what the LIBERALS have spoon fed you.
EU bureaucrat-parasites need to get paid. So they sue Apple, Ireland what have you to get money to fund their paychecks
Apple is a very wealthy homo-oriented company so if they get forced to pay up this bogus tax, I am not going to lose any sleep over it. Useless EU bureaucrats gotta eat too!
Thanks Swordmaker.
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