EU competition chief denies anti-US bias in investigating tax deals like Apple's

The European Commission is not unfairly targeting American corporations like Apple when it comes to cracking down on tax deals constituting illegal state aid, according to the E.U.'s competition head, Margrethe Vestager.

Vestager made the statement in a letter sent to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Monday, Bloomberg reported, explaining that she wanted to clear up any misunderstandings between between the two parties.

"If a national tax authority gives certain companies a more advantageous tax treatment than other undertakings in the same country, this can be extremely distortive of fair competition," Vestager wrote.

Earlier in February, Lew made a complaint to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker about a supposed anti-U.S. bias in investigations. The Commission has already directed scrutiny towards U.S. companies like Amazon, McDonald's, and Starbucks, and countries like Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, which have been accused of using sweetheart tax deals to draw in multinational corporations.

Pending an upcoming ruling, Apple could theoretically owe up to $8 billion or more in back taxes due to deals with the Irish government. Both Ireland and Apple have protested — in January, Apple CFO Luca Maestri claimed that a "fair outcome" of the investigation would find the company owing nothing.

The Commission has in fact targeted European corporations as well, the most notable example being when Belgium was ordered to recover $765 million from 35 multinationals, among them BP and Anheuser-Busch.

43 Comments

ceek74 324 comments · 12 Years

About 8 years ago

Huh. Legal until certain people realized how much money THEY could be raking in. Pigs. Amazing what money does. The EU should break up as they're clearly not ready to unite, nice try though.

512ke 781 comments · 19 Years

Europe clearly doesn't want US companies to invest there. OK, let's not. Problem solved.

suddenly newton 13819 comments · 14 Years

Since this is also the politically correct answer, how do I evaluate its sincerity? Would the EU admit to an anti-US bias, if that were the case? I assume we'll never know, but it is in their best interests to deny a bias.

knowitall 1648 comments · 11 Years

ceek74 said:

Huh. Legal until certain people realized how much money THEY could be raking in. Pigs. Amazing what money does. The EU should break up as they're clearly not ready to unite, nice try though.

The EU exits in part to make sure its member states are a tax paridise, that is, for the governments, not its citizens. It is now impossible to move to an other European country and have a better tax deal.
We currently have a 75% or higher tax rate and with the EU stranglehold in place this will increase until we reach a revolution.
The other reason for the EU to exist is as a second - extremely lucerative - career for politicians, they sell their own country short to be able to have a seat in this circus.
So it is better for everyone that the EU breaks up; currently GB is having a referendum on this issue but I suspect it will never come to a GB exit.