EU watchdog wants Apple to pay €13bn in back taxes after all
EU competition enforcers are filing to overturn a verdict which they claim was a legal mistake when it abandoned an order for Apple to pay €13bn (£11.46bn) in Irish back taxes.
The decision forms part of the European Commission’s clampdown on ‘aggressive’ tax planning by multinationals.
The Commission said in 2016 that two Irish tax rulings had suspicious reductions on Apple’s tax for over 20 years, which was as low as 0.005 per cent in 2014.
A General Court ruling last year said the Commission had not met the necessary legal standard to show Apple had an unfair advantage, however, the Commission has since appealed to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
“The General Court’s failure to properly consider the structure and content of the decision and the explanations in the Commission’s written submissions on the functions performed by the head offices and the Irish branches is a breach of procedure,” the Commission said in a filing in the Official Journal.
“The decision examines the functions performed by the Irish branches in justifying the attribution of the Apple IP licenses to them constitutes contradictory reasoning, which amounts to a failure to state reasons,” the EU competition enforcer added.
Apple affirmed that the General Court judgement proved its compliance with Irish tax laws however, the CJEU will hold a hearing on the case this year.