APPLE wins case
BRUSSELS: an EU Union court on Wednesday delivered a hammer blow to the bloc’s attempts to rein multinationals’ ability to strike sweetheart tax deals with individual EU countries when it ruled that Apple doesn't need to pay 13 billion euros ($15bn) in back taxes to eire.
The EU Commission had claimed in 2016 that Apple had struck an illegal tax affect Irish authorities that allowed it to pay extremely low rates. But the EU’s General Court said on Wednesday that the commission didn't achieve showing to the requisite legal standard that there was a plus.
"The commission was wrong to declare that Apple had been granted a selective economic advantage and, by extension, state aid," said the Luxembourg-based court, which is that the second-highest within the EU.
The EU Commission had ordered Apple to buy gross underpayment of tax on profits across the ECU bloc from 2003 to 2014. The commission said Apple used two shell companies in Ireland to report its Europe-wide profits at effective rates well under one-hundredth.
In many cases, multinationals pay taxes on the majority of their revenue across the EU’s 27 countries within the one EU country where they need their regional headquarters. For Apple and lots of other big tech companies, that's Ireland.
For small EU countries like Ireland, that helps attract international business and even a little amount of tax income is useful for them. internet result, however, is that the businesses often find yourself paying very low tax.
The ruling can only be appealed on points of law and therefore the Commission vice-chairman Margrethe Vestager said she was studying the judgment and can “reflect on possible next steps.
The Irish government welcomed the ruling, saying “there was no special treatment provided to the US company. Apple also said it had been pleased by the choice, arguing that the case isn't about what proportion tax it pays, but in what country. Apple CEO Tim Cook had earlier called the EU demand for back taxes total political crap.
The defeat is particularly stinging for Vestager, who has campaigned for years to uproot special tax deals. Trump has mentioned her because the tax lady who really hates the US.
Despite the setback, she vowed to hold on the fight. “The commission will still check out aggressive tax planning measures under EU state aid rules to assess whether or not they end in illegal state aid,” she said.
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