Sheer amount of data involved delaying EU ruling on Apple's Irish tax deals, Commissioner says
There's no way of telling when the European Commission will conclude its investigation into Apple's Irish tax deals, simply because the huge amount of data involved, the Commission's competition head said on Monday.
"The first priority is the quality of the case work... And therefore it is very difficult to make predictions as to when the case will be ready for a decision," Margrethe Vestager told a European Parliament hearing, according to Reuters.
The investigation has already been in progress for two years. Vestager noted that having recently asked the Irish government for more information, new questions were raised that demanded answers from both Ireland and Apple.
Apple is accused of exploiting Irish loopholes to avoid paying normal taxes on international revenue, in exchange for keeping jobs in the country. In addition to funneling money through Ireland, Apple's European operations are based there, along with its only self-owned factory. A datacenter is planned, but awaiting approval.
Under European Union regulations, such tax arrangements could constitute illegal state aid if they're not extended to every business. The EU has been cracking down on other governments and multinational corporations for this reason, and could potentially ask Ireland to collect billions in back taxes from Apple.
The latter insists that it has "paid every cent of tax" it owes, but has also promised that it is "committed to Ireland" regardless of how the Commission rules.
22 Comments
When Government or it's whatever agency says, because of so and so tax loopholes, this happened. Well, if you don't have loophole in tax than companies will operate somewhere else and your people won't get job and extra revenue. So EU, either fix your tax loopholes or leave Apple and similar companies alone. And USA has similar problem where some companies merge with others and have their headquarter/operation in some countries where they pay less tax/benefits Nothing new.
I hope it's not 2.6TB of data.
Of course Apple got a tax break and also agree to keep jobs in Ireland, it is called a win/win. The EU is unhappy they did not get their cut. The EU has to be careful since the UK is talking about pulling out of the EU do to all the open boards issue with the crazies living in most of the EU. If the UK leaves Ireland will not be far behind.
The thing is most people have no idea that Apple/Ireland deal dates back to the late 80's and predates the EU authority in the mater. The reason they trying to go through all data is they trying to find if their were new deals with after the EU came into existence.
Google, Amazon and Facebook do not predate the EU so they going to pay. Apple is going to be a more complicated issue for the EU to deal with.
I remember reading the delay with making a decision was due to the EU wanting to wait until elections were over.
Since that decision cannot stay at the top of the news, overwhelming amounts of data is being pushed to the top of the news.
I just want the EU to be transparent about it came to whatever decision is eventually made.