The Apple tax case and the direction of the EU

[stewart]

I have been to plenty of places just not abroad,

How sad!!

 

[arcobob]

How sad!!

Everybody should go to NZ at least once in their lifetime. The Bay of Plenty is simply paradise

 

[Henarar]

How sad!!

why sad ?

 

[5312]

The whole tax thing morphed into state aid thing by the commission is a joke.

The EU and the commission can and do easily pick on small members for the benefit of large members.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Apple case (I believe both Apple and Ireland acting legally here) there is certainly a moral case.

Nevertheless the decision if the commission was based on state aid having been illegally given to Apple.

If Commissioner Vestager was to investigate the situation if VW in Bavaria, perhaps she would find a rotten apple of much greater scale.

Ditto in France with PSA Group!

This thing has been a show trial and I'm pretty sure Ireland and Apple will be vindicated legally in the end.

I just hope that there is some way when that happens that Ireland and Apple can sue the EU for reputation damage suffered.

I think that your faith in it being overturned in court is very optimistic. Which court will it be heard in?

The EJC is very political, do you really think it will rule against the Commission?

One of the main reasons I voted out was because the EU keeps breaking it's own laws whenever it suits it. And the EJC keeps expanding it's jurisdiction to areas where our politicians told us that it would not.

There is effectively no rule of law in the EU, whatever the Commission wants, goes.

 

[Muck Spreader]

I think that your faith in it being overturned in court is very optimistic. Which court will it be heard in?

The EJC is very political, do you really think it will rule against the Commission?

One of the main reasons I voted out was because the EU keeps breaking it's own laws whenever it suits it. And the EJC keeps expanding it's jurisdiction to areas where our politicians told us that it would not.

There is effectively no rule of law in the EU, whatever the Commission wants, goes.

From what I can see the Irish Gov has already come to this conclusion. It will cost the taxpayer millions, their most vocal ally the UK is out of the picture now. IMO the challenge will be to hang on to the money and not see it all disappear in national debt repayments back to the EU.

 

[Goweresque]

I agree with a lot of what you have posted, and realise you are more or less on your own in this thread, but your quoted paragraph is not as plain and simple as you make out. Apple (or any other similar multi national) most certainly does have these costs. But who actually pays them? Not Apple, because they recoup it all from the end consumer. They then go on to make huge profits and through, admittedly legal, schemes avoid paying the profit on income by shifting the money around the globe to other parts of the company.

The costs of all these taxes are no different to you and I buying sprays, fertilisers, etc. or animal feed. They are simply a cost of production.

They do have a right to public services just the same as any other business or individual. They are public services and available to all whether or not that company or individual has ever paid tax. Even numerous cats supposedly stuck up a tree have benefitted from public services, so why not Apple?

The question is, when Apple sell an iPhone in the UK, lets say they get £100 (nominal sum). Of that £100 they need to pay for the shop, and the staff, marketing etc etc, and (crucially) they have to buy the phone from Apple Inc. Apple UK is not the same company as Apple Inc. They have to buy those phones at a market price (this will be policed rigorously by HMRC - Apple Inc are not allowed to sell iPhones to Apple UK at a largely different price than they would sell to an unrelated 3rd party). Thus Apple UK is just a retailer. It buys phones, and sells them. It may have sales of billions but the profit on those sales will those of a retailer, NOT a manufacturer, because the value created in the design, manufacture and branding (and the brand is a huge part of the value of the phone - an iPhone is pretty much the same as a non iPhone, but sells for lots more) was not created in the UK, so we have no right, legal or moral, to try and tax it. Apple in the UK is a retailer, not a designer and manufacturer of electronic devices, and will make profits at a retailer markup, not a manufacturers one.

So its no good saying 'This iPhone sold for £100, and cost Apple £10 to make, there's £90 profit for us to tax'. The vast majority of that extra £90 value was not created in the UK, and won't be taxed here. Not least because there are UK companies that benefit from the reverse situation - Rolls Royce for example may sell jet engines in the US to Boeing, but the vast majority of the profit created will be taxed in the UK, because thats where they are designed and built.

 

[Roger Perry]

And that friends is why the EU but hopefully not Britain in the future is doomed, see a business.........tax the hell out of it.

 

[czechmate]

And that friends is why the EU but hopefully not Britain in the future is doomed, see a business.........tax the hell out of it.

I was going to put the original but this came up and is quite funny...

 

[Roger Perry]

Are you trying to ruin my day..??????

 

[Muck Spreader]

And that friends is why the EU but hopefully not Britain in the future is doomed, see a business.........tax the hell out of it.

The future doesn't look good for the USA then, highest corporate tax in the world.

 

[corkman2013]

Perhaps this is a money grab by the EU. There is a possibility of US corporate tax rates coming down. American companies are not going to repatriate profits when the possibility of reduced rates post election. Whereas the EU would love to get them on the books before they disappear
.

 

[Roger Perry]

Its awful, one reason that US corporations have a reported $2.5 trillion in offshore accounts, bring it home and 35% vanishes.

Trump says Corp tax should be no more than 12-15% and if you return the $2.5t as a one time deal 10% tax on it........put it to work here.

 

[corkman2013]

If was in Washington that is what I would do.

 

[Muck Spreader]

Perhaps this is a money grab by the EU. There is a possibility of US corporate tax rates coming down. American companies are not going to repatriate profits when the possibility of reduced rates post election. Whereas the EU would love to get them on the books before they disappear
.

What I am not clear on is what's in it for the Irish gov other than a few jobs in a fictitious HQ and a tax income of 0.005%. Probably get more out of a local pub.

 

[corkman2013]

More than a few jobs. Around here working in an American company means my family members.,neighbours and friends don't have to emigrate to earn really high wages. Multiples of what you would earn in the local pub and much more than agriculture would provide

 

[Goweresque]

What I am not clear on is what's in it for the Irish gov other than a few jobs in a fictitious HQ and a tax income of 0.005%. Probably get more out of a local pub.

It would be some pub - we're talking over €100bn in profits over 20 years, even at 0.005% thats €5m of tax revenue over the same period. And they paid more than that, they paid €10m in tax in 2011 alone.

What in it for Ireland was keeping Apple happy - the money that was being funnelled through Ireland wasn't really anything to do with Ireland, it was revenues from sales in other EU countries, so they most likely thought it wasn't worth rocking the boat to try and get some of it. Apple were employing thousands and paying plenty of other taxes in Ireland, why risk it by trying to be greedy? Plus if they had rocked the boat and demanded their cut of it all chances are Apple would have created a different structure that avoided Ireland entirely so they'd get nothing.

 

[arcobob]

It would be some pub - we're talking over €100bn in profits over 20 years, even at 0.005% thats €5m of tax revenue over the same period. And they paid more than that, they paid €10m in tax in 2011 alone.

What in it for Ireland was keeping Apple happy - the money that was being funnelled through Ireland wasn't really anything to do with Ireland, it was revenues from sales in other EU countries, so they most likely thought it wasn't worth rocking the boat to try and get some of it. Apple were employing thousands and paying plenty of other taxes in Ireland, why risk it by trying to be greedy? Plus if they had rocked the boat and demanded their cut of it all chances are Apple would have created a different structure that avoided Ireland entirely so they'd get nothing.

Who is calling the shots and running Ireland then ?

 

[Muck Spreader]

It would be some pub - we're talking over €100bn in profits over 20 years, even at 0.005% thats €5m of tax revenue over the same period. And they paid more than that, they paid €10m in tax in 2011 alone.

What in it for Ireland was keeping Apple happy - the money that was being funnelled through Ireland wasn't really anything to do with Ireland, it was revenues from sales in other EU countries, so they most likely thought it wasn't worth rocking the boat to try and get some of it. Apple were employing thousands and paying plenty of other taxes in Ireland, why risk it by trying to be greedy? Plus if they had rocked the boat and demanded their cut of it all chances are Apple would have created a different structure that avoided Ireland entirely so they'd get nothing.

Well if the Irish gov is happy with a microscopic 10 million euro from a company with a 233 billion turnover (50 billion Apple Europe) they must be soft in the head. A typical large Irish company like the Kerry group for example pay 81 million euro per an.

 

[Goweresque]

Well if the Irish gov is happy with a microscopic 10 million euro from a company with a 233 billion turnover (50 billion Apple Europe) they must be soft in the head. A typical large Irish company like the Kerry group for example pay 81 million euro per an.

Yes but the Kerry group can't decide to move with the click of their fingers. Apple's European sales revenue that was being routed through Ireland was just that, revenue. Not operations, not offices, not factories, not employees. If the Irish had said 'Oi, we want our 12.5% cut out of that thank you very much' it wouldn't have been routed via Ireland for very long one suspects, they'd have worked out another way of shifting it to its final destination. Ireland made sense because their European operations were there, but it didn't have to be there. It was a brass plate job, could have been anywhere. So the Irish obviously thought 'We can try and grab some of this, and potentially annoy Apple, who might leave Ireland, or we can let it slide and keep Apple happy'. And they chose the latter.

Their choice as a sovereign (well theoretically) nation IMO.

 

[Muck Spreader]

Yes but the Kerry group can't decide to move with the click of their fingers. Apple's European sales revenue that was being routed through Ireland was just that, revenue. Not operations, not offices, not factories, not employees. If the Irish had said 'Oi, we want our 12.5% cut out of that thank you very much' it wouldn't have been routed via Ireland for very long one suspects, they'd have worked out another way of shifting it to its final destination. Ireland made sense because their European operations were there, but it didn't have to be there. It was a brass plate job, could have been anywhere. So the Irish obviously thought 'We can try and grab some of this, and potentially annoy Apple, who might leave Ireland, or we can let it slide and keep Apple happy'. And they chose the latter.

Their choice as a sovereign (well theoretically) nation IMO.

But 12.5% is one of lowest corp taxes in Europe and considerably less than the 35% they would pay in the US and still they aren't satisfied. One has to assume that Ireland has several hundred companies on similar schemes to make it financially worthwhile as well as the risk of incurring the wrath of the EU and US.