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Apple facing record bill for Irish tax


lurch234

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Apple facing record bill for Irish tax

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Apple could be ordered to pay billions of euros in back taxes in the Republic of Ireland by European Union competition officials.

The final ruling, expected on Tuesday, follows a three-year probe into Apple's Irish tax affairs, which the EU has previously identified as illegal.

The Financial Times reports that the bill will be for billions of euros, making it Europe's biggest tax penalty.

Apple and the Irish government are likely to appeal against the ruling.

 

Under EU law, national tax authorities are not allowed to give tax benefits to selected companies - which the EU would consider to be illegal state aid.

According to EU authorities, rulings made by the Irish government in 1991 and 2007 allowed Apple to minimise its tax bill in Ireland.

 

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EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager is leading the probe into Apple's tax affairs

 

BBC North America technology reporter Dave Lee says that the US Treasury is concerned that if there is a big EU tax bill for Apple, as expected, then Apple will offset at least some of that against the tax it would be paying in the US.

"So it's essentially shifting billions of dollars from the US economy, from the US tax-pot, into Europe. The US says Europe simply doesn't deserve that money, because all the hard work that goes into creating the iPhone and other Apple products... takes place in the US, and not in Europe."

 

Apple is not the only company that has been targeted for securing favourable tax deals in the European Union.

Last year, the commission told the Netherlands to recover as much as €30m (£25.6m) from Starbucks and Luxembourg was ordered to claw back a similar amount from Fiat.

Apple is potentially facing a much bigger bill, but with cash reserves of more than $200bn (£153bn), the company will have little problem paying up.

Nevertheless, Apple may have to restate its accounts following the ruling.

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Apple currently has a stock market value of around $600bn

 

Analysis: Dominic O'Connell, Today business presenter

The current focus is on the size of the bill - how much the European Commission thinks Apple should pay Ireland in back taxes. That will be big enough, but there are even larger issues at stake, including one fundamental question - who really runs the world, governments or giant corporations?

 

At present, it is difficult to tell. Individual governments appear impotent in their attempts to apply their tax laws to multinationals like Apple. They have systems designed to deal with the movement and sale of physical goods, systems that are useless when companies derive their profits from the sale of services and the exploitation of intellectual property.

 

In Apple's case, 90% of its foreign profits are legally channelled to Ireland, and then to subsidiaries which have no tax residence. At the same time, countries can scarcely afford not to co-operate when Apple comes calling; it has a stock market value of $600bn, and the attraction of the jobs it can create and the extra inward investment its favours can bring are too much for most politicians to resist.

There is an echo here of the tycoons of the early 20th Century who bestrode America. Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt and John Rockefeller were judged so powerful that they were almost above the law, something that successive US administrations sought to curb.

 

The European Commission's attempt to bring Apple to heel is on the surface about tax, but in the end about the power of the multinational and the power of the state. There is more to come; Margarethe Vestager, the Danish commissioner who is leading the charge against Apple, is warming up to take on Google.

Europe versus the giants of corporate America will be a battle royale, and one that will run and run.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37216176

 

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Dave Lee should rather blame his government to allow such practices overseas or in other words, there are holes to be fixed in the US tax system itself.

And that Apple would make all the stuff in the US is a pure lie, there is a huge chain of suppliers for chips, controllers etc. in all around the world and to conclude where Apple products are really made: everywhere.

Also brainstorming and prototyping isn't what the money brings but continued production and selling a finished product, not some paper of drawings or could-be-cobbled-together-prototype.

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1 hour ago, n0_risk! said:

Dave Lee should rather blame his government to allow such practices overseas or in other words, there are holes to be fixed in the US tax system itself.

 

And that Apple would make all the stuff in the US is a pure lie, there is a huge chain of suppliers for chips, controllers etc. in all around the world and to conclude where Apple products

Back before they passed trade bills to help make the rich richer  everything was made in the USA  even in my lifetime . They started  taking stuff overseas not paying taxes and paying workers slave labor wages  and  laying off all there workers in the USA . They deserve to have too be fined for not paying taxes over there. I hope they suck  there money well dry. No one twisted there arm and made them make things overseas  they could made it at home and imported it like businesses  had been doing for 100s of years before they passed the laws saying they could . And really you dont know what you're talking about  I use to work in the computer industry in a plant were all we done was make computer parts and they had plants all over the USA .

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1 hour ago, lurch234 said:

Apple could be ordered to pay billions of euros in back taxes

in the Republic of Ireland

by European Union competition officials.

I hope E.U. make it happen...:beg:

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1 minute ago, pc71520 said:

 

I hope E.U. make it happen...:beg:

To bad they dont get Microsoft too

 
Quote

 

Cash doesn't flow directly from buyers' pockets to Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash.
Instead, the company operates through three regional sales units, centered in Ireland, Singapore and Puerto Rico. These groups control the rights to profit from Microsoft products around the world.
By conducting sales from places with small populations and low tax rates, and routing some profit through virtually tax-free jurisdictions like Bermuda, Microsoft has cut billions of dollars from its tax bill over the last decade.


 

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/how-microsoft-parks-profits-offshore-to-pare-its-tax-bill/

It would be different if it was just Apple but its not everyone of them are guilty of not paying taxes Google ,Microsoft and Oracle .

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Back before they passed trade bills to help make the rich richer  everything was made in the USA  even in my lifetime . They started  taking stuff overseas not paying taxes and paying workers slave labor wages  and  laying off all there workers in the USA . They deserve to have too be fined for not paying taxes over there. I hope they suck  there money well dry. No one twisted there arm and made them make things overseas  they could made it at home and imported it like businesses  had been doing for 100s of years before they passed the laws saying they could .

But that's the thing, if the statement would be true that everything takes place in the US, it would probably be right that the majority of taxes should stay in the US but that isn't the case.

Apple will need to pay back but i doubt it will get that hefty, i just wonder why it took so long.

It's also a bit cynical to call those laundering addresses subsidiaries by any means - which Apple does - they are just entities with no employees or physical offices not bringing any benefit for the country, it's citizens or local infrastructure that make it possible to pay very little or no taxes at all.

At least smaller companies have a bit more sense for responsibility, they not only invest in local infrastructure but also have real offices and employee's that get food on the table and pay their fair share in taxes, that's also what keeps them small but it's pretty unfair. But we all know that a good portion of the big corps' laundered money is going into lobbying that helps defending the status quo for a bit longer.

https://visualeconomics.creditloan.com/double-irish-deception-how-google-apple-facebook-avoid-paying-taxes/

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I worked in many places in my lifetime one was in a plant that just made computer parts  all that stuff use to be made over here . I worked at many places making different things  that's what im good at is math setting up machines  to make things .And its not just a computer problem  in the USA . Its everything from paint brushes  too apples  that was in USA once. that is being imported by USA companies from Mexico  and China  to everywhere now,  It's about time some of  these companies  start reaping what they sow .

 

They are people  who will go too bed hungry tonight and these companies   are ripping off billions from the system   and Bill Gates suppose to be this big donator person  but everything he donates  he writes off on his taxes in the long run he just helps himself  and his company  has laid off and messed up more peoples life  than he ever helped anyone. Taxes are how the USA  feed the poor and help the disabled .So all they do is make thing's bad for the middle class who has too pay more taxes and worse on the poor because there programs get cut.  Its shameful.  :(

 

Things use to be the exact opposite of  what they was now if you bought imported goods  in the USA it cost you a lot more money because places like Japan dont have the stuff to make it with so they had to buy it from the USA or somewhere else  it drove the prices sky high.  Now these companies can ship the stuff to make it over to Asia with having  to pay very little taxes  make it cheaper  and ship it back without paying much taxes  and even put there money in  offshore banks  . As long as no law makers in the USA  stop it only the places  were they store there money can do something to stop it.  You can buy a computer 5 times as more powerful today  for less than what you paid  in the 90s are early 2000s . But that dont help  because peoples jobs are gone so they cant afford to buy it like they once could when things were higher.

 

People much rather buy a car or something  that will take them back and forth to make money  than spend money on a computer so they just use what they have tell it dies and as far as smartphones  and stuff you're service provider leases  to own them . The reason they do better is because  most people pays by the month on them when they pay there phone bill . :)

 

Most people who went to collage to do this or that are stuck on some job they didn't go to collage  for because jobs are hard to find  since the  early 2000s.

 

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