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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”!
The EU is griping because Ireland has attracted so many U.S. Companies ... so they’re trying to get back at Ireland!
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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.”
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
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!