A process of 13 billion euros. The EU Commission wants to enforce before a court in Luxembourg, a gigantic tax against the U.S. group. On Tuesday, the process began.
The lawyer from Apple went before the EU judges in the Full: the requirement of The EU “is contrary to reality and common sense,” says Daniel Beard before the EU court, the European court of justice ECJ downstream of the ordinary. “Apple now pays about 20 billion euros in taxes in the United States on the same profits would be taxed according to the Commission, also in Ireland,” claimed the legal representatives of the group in Luxembourg.
EU competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager had asked Apple in August 2016, the billion total in Ireland to pay, because the country granted the iPhone group is an impermissible special treatment in the Tax rates. Apple behind put now, including interest from 14.3 billion euros in an escrow account. The EU accused Apple of storing untaxed profits earned in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India, in Ireland, which had become the European hub for the electronics giant.
EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager in August 2016
Ireland on the pages of Apple’s
Ireland even stated in front of the EU court, the Commission’s analysis of the way “basic errors” and that there had been no illegal aid to the American company. “The decision of the Commission simply ignored Irish law”, – said the representative of Ireland, Maurice Collins at the beginning of the two-day hearing of the court. In the Commission’s required payments to the amounts for the years 2003 to 2014.
The European Commission denied on Tuesday that a majority of intellectual property created at Apple in the United States. However, the Irish tax authority has not performed the necessary analyses, to enable them to choose to be taxed in what proportions the profits in the United States and in Ireland would have to be. You have to rely instead on the information provided by Apple.
In the core of the dispute, the question of where business profits are taxed will be located. The Commission’s view, Apple’s income allocated to its “management seats” which existed only on paper, instead of paying taxes in Europe. The group explained that a large portion of his profits to be taxable in the U.S. because in their home country with the development work, the values would be created.
Profits are only parked?
In Ireland accumulated billions in profits had been parked to the design of Apple there only temporarily. Apple Boss Tim Cook was one of the group leaders who had vehemently called for a significant reduction in the U.S. tax rates for income from abroad. In the United States earlier, 35 percent on foreign profits of American companies is due. With the Reform, from President Donald Trump 2018 fell to the profits accumulated, then deductions with a significantly lower rate.
Apple taxes in the United States: $ 38 billion, 252 billion in foreign profits
It played at the time, no matter whether the profits were in offshore accounts, or whether the money was transferred to the United States. Apple was one of the many American companies who brought to this political position of their billions to their home country.
Apple paid according to January 2018 in the United States about 38 billion dollars in taxes on the abroad money mountain of 252 billion dollars. The EU Commission stressed after that, the step will not change anything in the claim, the taxes in Ireland to pay.
A decision of the EU General court is expected in several months. Then the pages can go in appeal to the European court of justice. This is likely to extend the dispute to other years.
ar/ul (dpa, afp, rtr)