There seems to be no end to the ingenuity of multinational companies when it comes to minimizing their taxes.
The latest evidence comes from the European Commission, which yesterday opened its papers regarding the investigation launched in June into the preferential tax regime offered by European governments to multinationals, presenting evidence that justifies its suspicions that the way Apple was taxed in Ireland.
The investigation is not yet complete, but if the Competition Commission fully substantiates the charges, the two multinational giants (and potentially many others, since a significant legal precedent is being created) will be forced to pay retroactive taxes worth many millions of euros, if not billions.
The European Commission has published a 21-page letter to the Irish government alleging, among other things, that Dublin granted tax “gifts” to Apple, which was given preferential treatment compared to other companies. At the heart of the long-standing tax agreement that Apple concluded with the Irish in 1991, in which the Commission claims that tax rates were set without economic criteria to “lead” to a pre-determined amount, while also being linked to job creation, which should not normally affect the application of tax law.
Apple paid less than €20 million in taxes in Ireland annually in the three years 2010-2012, according to Brussels. In 2013, the company “set aside” about $12 billion to pay taxes in the US on sales of €62.7 billion. The corresponding tax bill for sales abroad (estimated at $88 billion) was just $1.1 billion! The Irish government insists that it did not violate EU state aid law in the case of Apple, and company representatives claim that they did not “receive preferential treatment from the Irish authorities.”.
Source: planet-greece.blogspot.com
