My wife is a CPA and works for one of the "Big Four" AND her engagement currently involves auditing an investment firm in Ireland, and the EU. After speaking w

My wife is a CPA and works for one of the "Big Four" AND her engagement currently involves auditing an investment firm in Ireland, and the EU. After speaking with her, and getting her opinion, it seems most comments about this situation are rooted in too many arbitrary feelings without an understanding of how the tax law actually works. The crux of this issue is that US has a global tax code while EU has a localized tax code. What EU is proposing is really interesting because, if they win, Apple would be taxed twice, once on the money that their holding company has in Ireland and again once that money is brought over to the US. EU doesn't seem to care what other tax codes there are as their tax code is upheld by each conuntry in the EU and then there are EU panels that test for anti-competitive practices, etc. This raises issues in soveirnty of Nations if EU can supersede their tax code. It also raises a bunch of ethical issues within the EU when a company (investment institution) is based in one country while investing in another. To minimize the words written, from what I gather is this: Apple's situation is difficult because their argument is that they did not create (IP) in Ireland so they do not owe full corp tax on holding their money there. However, they pay all sales, (current) corp, etc. tax for all of their products where the item is sold or employees are working. Hence, this tax isn't a sales but a different classification of corp tax. They are being asked to pay taxes as if they are an Irish company that creates or manufactures their product in Ireland. Not as a holding company that pays their standard tax rate. There a lot of semantics in that statement and it's difficult to reiterate the explanation without a full blown essay. For the rest of EU, their tax code is a clusterfuck (for lack of a better term). Companies have to pay taxes in the country they do business + country that's their "Home". So an investment firm will have separate tax rates/brackets as the money moves acoss borders. This gets really complicated when countries are doing business outside of the EU but have their base there. There is also an issue with which currency the taxes have to be paid in (seems trivial except the exchange rate isn't stable). By all accounts, this looks like a pissing contest between EU and US firms and their stance can have global ramifications that are not foreseeable. One interesting perspective my wife raised is that because taxes are paid in "home county" currency, manipulation of the market becomes a viable option for multi-national EU/US/Workd orgs to lower/raise their taxes paid. This seems far fetched but a tiny change becomes big money on something like 14B (I doubt Apple will resort to such tactics because of money involved). TL;DR Apple pays taxes they are suppose to pay per Irish tax code. The money held there would be taxed if they move to US or if they invest/purchase items in Ireland/EU. Currently proposal is using a loophole within a loophole to attempt to double tax Apple (or any other company they choose to go after).