Oh dear this is pretty mendacious: " A company’s profits should be taxed in the country where the value is created. ... In Apple’s case, nearly all of our re

Oh dear this is pretty mendacious: " A company’s profits should be taxed in the country where the value is created. ... In Apple’s case, nearly all of our research and development takes place in California, so the vast majority of our profits are taxed in the United States." No, I don't think the agreed principle is at all to tax research and development - it is to apply taxes at the point where the transactions take place. In this case, in Europe. And the European UNION is named that way for a reason; the states have to abide by rules that are designed to protect and enhance the European collective-bargaining position, just as for workers in a labor union. Even so, some states still try to use lax corporate legislation as a competitive edge. Now they've been caught out. I'm no fan of retroactive taxation, but there it is - if the tax arrangements are deemed illegal, then the beneficiaries of that are going to be on the hook. Apple's claim that they followed the law may be true to an extent, but the full 'legal tax' situation must obviously include not only the Irish tax rules, but also the European ones, so they appear to have failed in due diligence.