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Presumably these laws are published publicly, and apple has more an enough resources to hire enough lawyers to ensure they are in compliance. Ignorance of the

Presumably these laws are published publicly, and apple has more an enough resources to hire enough lawyers to ensure they are in compliance. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

dmitrygr 2y ago
five accountants will produce six results from the same input based on the same laws, all of which the IRS will accept. Laws are not code. They are not unambiguous and noncontradictory. And forget apple! This means that any company in existence now needs a lawyer who understands the Treaty of Lisbon! Just in case some EU country tells them to do X, they now need to know if said country can actually say so! I think you underestimate the damage of "we cannot trust the actual government to tell us what we can and cannot do"
- pyrale 2y ago
  > I think you underestimate the damage of "we cannot trust the actual government to tell us what we can and cannot do" I wonder how these companies manage not to run afoul of US FCPA.
- yunohn 2y ago
  Dude, seriously? You’re acting like Apple was clueless here. This entire controversy is about Ireland and Apple colluding for over a decade to avoid paying corporate taxes anywhere else in the EU. Nobody involved was ignorant of the potential illegality, rather that was deliberately the point.
- toyg 2y ago
  > any company in existence now needs a lawyer who understands the Treaty of Lisbon! Hyperbole makes you look hysteric. The reality is that every other company is doing just fine, paying the tax they owe. The only companies who have to worry are shady ones like Apple (abusing tax-havens since the '80s, with Braeburn etc): it's now established that secret agreements with cosy governments will not be tolerated in the EU, as it should be.
  - Silhouette 2y ago
    Do you really believe Apple-Ireland is the only cosy tax-based incentive that any EU member state has offered to any international company to invest and operate locally in the past 30 years? What's next? All the member states that offered attractive VAT rates when the regime was different years ago and doing so was advantageous retrospectively get reset to some baseline rate around the bloc's average and every company that ever paid VAT at lower rates in those member states gets a bill?
    - noirbot 2y ago
      It's also literally not the only one that got in trouble today. Google's deal with Ireland also got smacked down.
    - toyg 2y ago
      > Do you really believe Apple-Ireland is the only cosy tax-based incentive that any EU member state has offered to any international company Cases are prosecuted if someone (either competitors or the Commission) thinks they're worth the trouble. Apple and Google were clearly worth it, simply because of the massive amounts of money involved - nobody cares if an ice-cream stall is foregone 100 euros. If you know of other worthy cases, feel free to take them up with the courts. You're mischaracterizing the issue, by the way. The problem is the way one specific company was treated, which was not in line with the practices the Irish had cleared with the EU. Other companies were not treated like that and were just fine. > retrospectively get reset to some baseline rate around the bloc's average and every company that ever paid VAT at lower rates in those member states gets a bill That would be an extremely popular measure, politically, but there is currently no indication that the Commission or the ECJ will ever ask for that, and it has nothing to do with this judgement.
      - Silhouette 2y ago
        I don't see what you think is mischaracterised here. Lots of companies have received individual favourable tax treatments within the EU in ways that would not fly today. Several member states have historically established competitive tax environments at the likely expense of their fellow members too. As I said before it is unrealistic to argue as if Apple and Ireland is the only such case. And I doubt that retrospective VAT change would still be very popular after trading with the EU became completely toxic - which is not an unrealistic outcome from such a hostile act. Businesses already avoid EU customers because of the existing environment. Retrospective demands for more money would be much worse.
rowanG077 2y ago
Laws are also often intentionally written in such a way to be both hard to understand and ambiguous. Such rarely exercised laws are really only made manifest once tested by a court of law. It's basically impossible to protect yourself via the word of law. Because when the rubber hits the road the judge can interpret whatever they want. Unless there is precedent even the best lawyers are just guessing.
Silhouette 2y ago
Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. That argument is quite a stretch when the EU tends to pass relatively ambiguous legislation and leave interpretation relatively open compared to for example the legal framework in the US, when it was not some random law firm but literally the relevant national government that gave Apple the OK, and when that situation was widely known and apparently accepted for about 30 years before the EU intervened. I think the EU will pay a high price for actions like this. It is retrospectively moving the goalposts decades after the fact and trying to shift billions in funds when ironically neither the company paying the taxes nor the member state government apparently compelled now to collect them want that situation. You can't play games like that and remain a credible environment for investment and growth. This particular action is specific to Ireland but by the nature of the EU its willingness and ability to take such an action in one member state taints all other member states as well. And without constitutional change to the EU itself there will never now be anything that any member state can ever do to remove that stain. Businesses now can't trust that any incentives they are offered to invest and grow in any EU member state won't get reversed further down the line no matter what any government of any member state says. It's hard to overstate how devastating that reality could become to member states trying to attract investment and grow their economies.
- noirbot 2y ago
  The other thing that worries me here is the EU's seeming willingness to both not intervene quickly and not provide ways for companies to know for sure that they're on the right side of EU laws until they do or don't get sued.
  - Silhouette 2y ago
    Creating an ambiguous business environment is unfortunately a recurring pattern with the EU. A few years ago we had some fierce debates on HN about EU measures like the GDPR. Some claimed the regulations were excellent and compliance was easy if you weren't doing anything wrong. Some were more cautious and thought the length and frequent ambiguity of the regulations meant it couldn't be that simple. The strident defenders of the GDPR as lightweight regulation that should cause no significant costs or problems for honest businesses might like to read Mario Draghi's assessment of it from his report this week.

Presumably these laws are published publicly, and apple has more an enough resources to hire enough lawyers to ensure they are in compliance. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

dmitrygr 2y ago

five accountants will produce six results from the same input based on the same laws, all of which the IRS will accept. Laws are not code. They are not unambiguous and noncontradictory. And forget apple! This means that any company in existence now needs a lawyer who understands the Treaty of Lisbon! Just in case some EU country tells them to do X, they now need to know if said country can actually say so! I think you underestimate the damage of "we cannot trust the actual government to tell us what we can and cannot do"

pyrale 2y ago
> I think you underestimate the damage of "we cannot trust the actual government to tell us what we can and cannot do" I wonder how these companies manage not to run afoul of US FCPA.
yunohn 2y ago
Dude, seriously? You’re acting like Apple was clueless here. This entire controversy is about Ireland and Apple colluding for over a decade to avoid paying corporate taxes anywhere else in the EU. Nobody involved was ignorant of the potential illegality, rather that was deliberately the point.
toyg 2y ago
> any company in existence now needs a lawyer who understands the Treaty of Lisbon! Hyperbole makes you look hysteric. The reality is that every other company is doing just fine, paying the tax they owe. The only companies who have to worry are shady ones like Apple (abusing tax-havens since the '80s, with Braeburn etc): it's now established that secret agreements with cosy governments will not be tolerated in the EU, as it should be.
- Silhouette 2y ago
  Do you really believe Apple-Ireland is the only cosy tax-based incentive that any EU member state has offered to any international company to invest and operate locally in the past 30 years? What's next? All the member states that offered attractive VAT rates when the regime was different years ago and doing so was advantageous retrospectively get reset to some baseline rate around the bloc's average and every company that ever paid VAT at lower rates in those member states gets a bill?
  - noirbot 2y ago
    It's also literally not the only one that got in trouble today. Google's deal with Ireland also got smacked down.
  - toyg 2y ago
    > Do you really believe Apple-Ireland is the only cosy tax-based incentive that any EU member state has offered to any international company Cases are prosecuted if someone (either competitors or the Commission) thinks they're worth the trouble. Apple and Google were clearly worth it, simply because of the massive amounts of money involved - nobody cares if an ice-cream stall is foregone 100 euros. If you know of other worthy cases, feel free to take them up with the courts. You're mischaracterizing the issue, by the way. The problem is the way one specific company was treated, which was not in line with the practices the Irish had cleared with the EU. Other companies were not treated like that and were just fine. > retrospectively get reset to some baseline rate around the bloc's average and every company that ever paid VAT at lower rates in those member states gets a bill That would be an extremely popular measure, politically, but there is currently no indication that the Commission or the ECJ will ever ask for that, and it has nothing to do with this judgement.
    - Silhouette 2y ago
      I don't see what you think is mischaracterised here. Lots of companies have received individual favourable tax treatments within the EU in ways that would not fly today. Several member states have historically established competitive tax environments at the likely expense of their fellow members too. As I said before it is unrealistic to argue as if Apple and Ireland is the only such case. And I doubt that retrospective VAT change would still be very popular after trading with the EU became completely toxic - which is not an unrealistic outcome from such a hostile act. Businesses already avoid EU customers because of the existing environment. Retrospective demands for more money would be much worse.

rowanG077 2y ago

Laws are also often intentionally written in such a way to be both hard to understand and ambiguous. Such rarely exercised laws are really only made manifest once tested by a court of law. It's basically impossible to protect yourself via the word of law. Because when the rubber hits the road the judge can interpret whatever they want. Unless there is precedent even the best lawyers are just guessing.

Silhouette 2y ago

Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. That argument is quite a stretch when the EU tends to pass relatively ambiguous legislation and leave interpretation relatively open compared to for example the legal framework in the US, when it was not some random law firm but literally the relevant national government that gave Apple the OK, and when that situation was widely known and apparently accepted for about 30 years before the EU intervened. I think the EU will pay a high price for actions like this. It is retrospectively moving the goalposts decades after the fact and trying to shift billions in funds when ironically neither the company paying the taxes nor the member state government apparently compelled now to collect them want that situation. You can't play games like that and remain a credible environment for investment and growth. This particular action is specific to Ireland but by the nature of the EU its willingness and ability to take such an action in one member state taints all other member states as well. And without constitutional change to the EU itself there will never now be anything that any member state can ever do to remove that stain. Businesses now can't trust that any incentives they are offered to invest and grow in any EU member state won't get reversed further down the line no matter what any government of any member state says. It's hard to overstate how devastating that reality could become to member states trying to attract investment and grow their economies.

noirbot 2y ago
The other thing that worries me here is the EU's seeming willingness to both not intervene quickly and not provide ways for companies to know for sure that they're on the right side of EU laws until they do or don't get sued.
- Silhouette 2y ago
  Creating an ambiguous business environment is unfortunately a recurring pattern with the EU. A few years ago we had some fierce debates on HN about EU measures like the GDPR. Some claimed the regulations were excellent and compliance was easy if you weren't doing anything wrong. Some were more cautious and thought the length and frequent ambiguity of the regulations meant it couldn't be that simple. The strident defenders of the GDPR as lightweight regulation that should cause no significant costs or problems for honest businesses might like to read Mario Draghi's assessment of it from his report this week.