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Apple Will Start Paying Back Taxes to Irish Government Next Month

• atonse 9y ago
  This is wonderful news. Let's hope they go after Google, MS, and all the other tax dodgers out there after this.
  • gamblor956 9y ago
    They are, it's just that Apple was by far the worst tax evader of the bunch.
• dilap 9y ago
  When the people complain about the European union taking too much autonomy, this seems like a pretty good example. It seems crazy to me that Ireland is "not allowed" to set taxes as low as it would like to attract foreign investment. Even states in the US can freely do that!
  • avar 9y ago
    I don't like some EU taxation rules, e.g. the minimum 15% VAT, which effectively sets an upper bound on government efficiency, but this has nothing to do with that. Ireland is not being penalized for having taxes that are too low, but, in the words of the EC[1]: > Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to > €13 billion to Apple. This is illegal under > EU state aid rules, because it allowed Apple > to pay substantially less tax than other > businesses. Ireland must now recover the > illegal aid. You can elect to have low taxes in the EU, but it's anti-competitive behavior for a government in the EU to give preferential treatment to some companies over others. Ireland is perfectly within their rights to have Apple pay the same taxes they've been paying already going forward. But to do so they need to adjust the general corporate tax rate, not just give Apple specifically those illegal benefits. 1. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm
    • dilap 9y ago
      Ah, I didn't pick up on that distinction. Thank you.
    • eitally 9y ago
      It's interesting that this is true, because (at the state level, not federal) this is table stakes to lure large corporations to locate in one state over another. Just look at some of the pitches cities/states have been making to Amazon for their HQ2, or the Foxconn deal in Wisconsin. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/05/foxconn-package-cost-wisconsin-eight-times-much-per-job-similar-2017-state-jobs-deals/1080214001/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/05/foxc...
      • throwaway2048 9y ago
        This is very negative behaviour in sum, because it becomes a race to the bottom where you either forgo all tax revenue, or you dont attract large companies. Its good the EU has rules in place to prevent this destructive behaviour.
        • AnthonyMouse 9y ago
          > This is very negative behaviour in sum, because it becomes a race to the bottom where you either forgo all tax revenue, or you dont attract large companies. It's not just that. The race to the bottom isn't really a thing because companies cost states money. They require the state to increase the resources they spend on transit capacity and emergency services etc. The only reason states want companies is because the amount of taxes they pay exceeds the amount of expenditures they require. So there is no race to have zero taxes, the competition is only to tax companies no more than the amount of government services they consume. Which isn't especially problematic. The real problem is that if states make special rules for large companies, it gives them an advantage over smaller companies, which destroys local businesses in favor of international ones. Then next year some other place gives the huge company a better deal and the city is devastated because the company displaced a huge chunk of the local economy and now they're leaving and taking it with them. If states want to compete by having low taxes, great. But nobody should be getting special treatment like that.
  • yoz-y 9y ago
    Can they? I do not know the taxation law in the US but isn't there any federal tax on top of state ones? In EU there is no "European corporate tax".
  • woadwarrior01 9y ago
    States in the US cannot set the federal income tax rate. And there’s no real analogue of that in Europe. And if companies operating out of Ireland don’t pay their taxes, countries in the EU cannot selectively tax goods and services originating from Ireland; this runs counter to the ideals of free trade amongst the member nations of the EU.
  • greendesk 9y ago
    I believe tax competition between states reaches problematic levels in the States. While individual rights are preserved, a race-to-the-bottom between states reaches a negative outcome for individual states; and for United states as a whole. Setting aggressive tax breaks to lure companies for a short period of time guides companies to jump state over state, with less revenue to each state. The aggressive tax breaks might better be revised in the States. Furthermore, was it that the Irish tax break to Apple was below that permissible by Irish law itself?
  • belorn 9y ago
    They can, as long as all companies inside Ireland can enjoy the same low tax. The idea from the EU taxation rules is that all companies should be able to compete under same rules and that is not possible when a country give special taxation privileges for a single company. The reason why Ireland do not do this is that they would go bankrupt. Their budget relies on the fact that all the other companies in Irland pay the normal tax.
  • opportune 9y ago
    When you allow "competition" between countries regarding who gets to set the lowest taxes, you end up a in a situation where there is a race to the bottom resulting in outsized benefits for a few countries. If you enforce collective bargaining you prevent that situation, and everybody does better overall.
  • nyandaber 9y ago
    The problem here isn't Ireland being a tax haven, it's Ireland giving a preferential treatment to Apple, allowing them to pay less taxes than other companies in Ireland would pay in the same situation.
  • rsynnott 9y ago
    The issue isn't that Ireland set taxes too low, but that it was allegedly secretly offering custom deals to certain companies. Ireland allegedly used to do this quite a bit back in the day.
  • IAmEveryone 9y ago
    Your scenario isn't exactly what's happening here. But still, regarding your idea: why not? The Amazon HQ2 campaign is a pretty good example how companies are using tax competition to instigate a race-to-the-bottom. There's no doubt that Amazon would house these employees somewhere. So the payoff is essentially zero-sum. All that's changing is that Amazon is playing different populations against each other to save on tax. Rules against such behaviour are just an effective method to avoid a prisoners' dilemma by the most obvious method known to anyone playing the game: communication, and binding agreement. Now there is an argument that some locales may need to use tax policy if they are behind in every other feature, i. e. education, infrastructure etc. But in fact the EU is a rather successful model of flexibility in that regard: Just look at the incredible economic success of eastern Europe and the Balkans after the end of the cold war, or Portugal, or even Ireland itself. Just compare Belarus to its EU neighbours to get a sense of what's possible. How did this work? The EU does allow for tax incentives or subsidies where regions need to catch up. They also created an enormous system of direct transfers to allow investments into the factors that make regions competitive, such as infrastructure or rule-of-law. As a matter of fact, Ireland simply agreed to the rules, and their scope isn't a matter of any "natural law". If countries agree to conduct themselves by certain rules than that's that. Of course every single rule may occasionally diverge from what any single country would otherwise do, or the rule wouldn't be necessary. But, just as with any intentional law, these rules taken as a whole have empirically been extremely beneficial to its signatories.
    • dilap 9y ago
      (You're right, I didn't take in the full subtlety of the Ireland EU situation. The specific EU rule seems much more defensible than my idea.) But regarding that idea: You make some interesting arguments in favor of states essentially forming a "cartel" in order to avoid driving taxes too low. But then how do you decide what "too low" is? Who gets to decide what a reasonable tax rate is? If we're a bunch of people in lonely Isolated State and we vote to set our tax rates very low, does it seem reasonable that some central government strongly controlled by more populated states can say, "no, that's not fair"? On an emotional level, I'm very sympathetic to the idea that the group of people deciding policy in a region should not be too far removed from that region. (Of course, that it still might actually result in globally worse outcomes. But it might actually be worth it, just to avoid the unjust feeling of "policy dictated by people far away".) Even then, I'm not convinced it actually results in worse outcomes. California has very high taxes, and is nevertheless a very popular destination. Some sort of centralized system that required all states to have CA levels of taxation seems like it would almost certainly be worse overall... (I'm more thinking out loud than trying to make an argument.)
  • hhw 9y ago
    In a world where more and more power is concentrated into fewer and fewer large corporations, I'm not so sure this is crazy that they're not allowed to do this, nor that it would be a good thing if they were. The natural result would be that different states or nations race to the bottom chasing the corporations to locate there, depriving their citizens of substantial tax revenues that could have been used for the public good. Even if you're against social programs, there is still common infrastructure that everyone benefits from such as roads that need to be paid for.
  • namlem 9y ago
    Yeah, but when states do it in the US it ends up as a race to the bottom. The losers are all the states that participated and the winners are big corporations and their shareholders.
• dosycorp 9y ago
  You have to hand it to the Irish. As a plan to collect more tax in the long term, offering (effectively) tax free status by not enforcing "Double Irish w/ Dutch Sandwich", to attract big players, letting them dig themselves into tax-debt holes for a few years while letting them feel they will get off scott-free, then enforcing it and securing a deal to get back-taxes paid, is pretty genius. Very stable genius to help rebuild their economy that was pretty crushed after 2008.
  • neilc 9y ago
    Ireland is not "enforcing" anything; the European Commission are the party that ruled that Apple received unfair tax treatment. Both Apple and the Irish government are appealing that ruling. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-apple-taxavoidance/ireland-expects-apple-eu-tax-appeal-to-be-heard-in-autumn-idUSKBN1HV1OT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-apple-taxavoidance/ire...
    • dosycorp 9y ago
      Yeah, sure. That was a condition by IE of the EU bringing this ruling. "You have to make us look culpable as well, it's just better for business." You really don't think that's how it works? You're too naive!
  • TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
    It's not Ireland trying to make Apple pay back-taxes! The European Commission is forcing Ireland to charge Apple them.
    • dosycorp 9y ago
      Come on. IE is not double dealing to the EU for a bit of kick back somehow? Of course they are. That EU is "forcing" them is hilarious. IE loves to play a fake victim if they can, and in this case, all the better to be open for business. "Oh, EU, please stop getting me to get Apple to pay me taxes. Please stop making me collect revenue." Said no state ever. But believe their fake victim tale if you want. The Irish are clearly too clever for you!
• noddy1 9y ago
  "Apple CEO Tim Cook previously called the decision "total political crap" " Fuck off asshole. Playing to the limits of tax law is fine, but acting outraged when it backfires on you is lame. You played, you lost, suck it up.
  • Ftuuky 9y ago
    Exactly. Nothing against firms trying to optimize their fiscal plan but if you have to pay then shut up and pay it up.
    • scoggs 9y ago
      I know it's unreasonable but I'd really love to be a fly on the wall and somehow be able to see, in an alternate reality, how / where / when / why that money they'd be paying would be spent. I'm just purely curious.
  • stingrae 9y ago
    He and Apple was following the law. If Europe was so angry about Ireland's tax laws they should have stopped it from taking effect in the beginning.
    • oculusthrift 9y ago
      Don’t really get people who defend mega corporations. They played the game and they lost. They should’ve known that the rules can change, especially if someone is cheating or gaming the system.
      • stingrae 9y ago
        Where is the evidence that they were cheating the system. Ireland created tax laws, to incentivize companies to come. The European commission comes in and decides that Ireland needs to revert laws that have been on the books for years and collect back taxes on it. This is absurd. How can a company plan for all the potential laws that Europe could reverse. Luckily in Apple's case, they have the funds to pay.
• afarrell 9y ago
  Hopefully they use this to build more housing.
  • chrisseaton 9y ago
    I thought Ireland already had a huge glut of housing that nobody wanted?
    • rbanffy 9y ago
      Quite the contrary. There is a monumental housing shortage. But this is not where this money will go. When all is said and done, if Apple still owes that much, it'll be divided with the rest of the EU according to Apple's sales. Thanks to its tech hubs (it seems every other person on the train is a software engineer), Ireland may end up with some part of it, but most certainly not all.
      • chrisseaton 9y ago
        What happened to that huge number of empty estates built during the boom? Are they in the wrong place? Can people live there but work from home?
• knolan 9y ago
  The Government is putting the money in an escrow account until they figure out what to do[0]. The money would cover Ireland’s social welfare bill for a year which is a major cost to the Irish tax payer. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-apple-taxavoidance/ireland-chooses-bny-mellon-to-manage-apple-escrow-fund-idUSKCN1GJ190 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-apple-taxavoidance/ire...
  • walshemj 9y ago
    Well I hope they will be sharing it prorata with the other eu members that lost :-)
    • secfirstmd 9y ago
      I don't feel so guilty about this any more. We bailed out German, French and other bank bondholders for billions (that unlike TARP we will never see back) when we should have give them 50% haircuts. 18% of my countrymen now live abroad, far higher rates for young people - including way too many of my friends. Most of the reasons for our mistakes are entirely our own but the EU can bugger off if it thinks it should be able to set our tax rates - each citizen will be paying back debts because of their banks for decades - financially and at the human level.
      • IAmEveryone 9y ago
        I usually don't engage in this sort of trivial nationalism. But I just have to inject that your retelling of this story omits the fact that Irish banks were obviously first in line to go belly-up. It is true that those banks had various lenders in Germany/France/wherever, and that the consequences of an all-out collapse of the Irish economy would have had negative effects in those countries as well. But presenting it as some sort of altruistic sacrifice to allow them to rescue Ireland from a potato-based future is just adding moral bankruptcy to the other. It's also frustrating to see such uninformed hatred, considering EU funding of 44.6 Billion Euros since 1976 was what essentially allowed an agrarian society to catch up with Western Europe in the first place. Plus, obviously, a large fraction of those 18% of Irish living abroad are beneficiaries of the EU's open borders. [0]: https://ec.europa.eu/ireland/about-us/impact-of-EU-membership-on-Ireland_en https://ec.europa.eu/ireland/about-us/impact-of-EU-membershi...
• heartbreak 9y ago
  The Irish Supreme Court has previously held that ex post facto civil laws are illegal in the Republic of Ireland. Is this not ex post facto taxation?
  • Oletros 9y ago
    No, it isn't, it is not a problem with tax law, it is a problem of secrets deals with some companies
  • dragonwriter 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure the EU law underlying this was in force in Ireland before the taxable events, so no, it's just a retrospective determination of tax owed under law in force at the time of the act.
• denysonique 9y ago
  Higher taxes are always passed on to the consumer, businesses are greedy.
  • namlem 9y ago
    That's not true. Research shows that, while some of the increases are passed along, a large chunk is absorbed by the shareholders.
• frandroid 9y ago
  Finally some good use for that foreign Apple cash hoard. :)
• amrx101 9y ago
  The Irish government along with Apple is filling an appeal against this. These Irish politicians sure have best interest of their countrymen in mind.
• deleted 9y ago
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