In standard terms, from discussing this with several tax accountants in Ireland, the issue lies in Ireland applied 13.5% tax on a certain percentage of the pro

In standard terms, from discussing this with several tax accountants in Ireland, the issue lies in Ireland applied 13.5% tax on a certain percentage of the profits, those declared in Ireland at the time, but did not apply it to all the profits. Although the book-keeping was done in an Irish company the sales where not all in Ireland. At the time Ireland sought clarification from the EU on how the tax should be applied, and were told they could only tax the profits generated in Ireland. Now, after discovering there is a sum of money in off-shore accounts that had not had the tax deducted, they have told Ireland to retrospectively apply the 13% tax on all profits unless another EU country could claim the profits were generated there. So the original ruling was to use Ireland as a tax collector that the rest of Europe could then ask for the taxes they were due. It seems that the Irish gov are seeking to overturn the original ruling as, according to the original information sought at the time, they were not doing anything illegal. In hindsight the accounting irregularity, refereed to as the double Irish, meant that Apple could accumulate these profits. The main issue is that these monies have not been declared in any EU country, so now because of the EU's ruling Trump has decided it belongs to America because American companies should only declare profits in America :D