EU commission appeals after Apple won $15 billion tax case

European Union (EU) commission announced that it will appeal after losing a $15 billion tax case against Apple. This was the legal battle going on for a long time between the technology giant and the European Union’s executive commission. European Commission was trying to restrain the ability of Apple to make special tax deals with the individual countries in Europe.

The commission had earlier said the Apple had not made complete repayment of the taxes on the gross profit to Ireland. Hence, they had gone ahead with legal proceedings. The repayment amount that they are expecting Apple to make is 13 billion euros which is 15 billion in US dollars.

In 2016, the General Court of the European Union handled this case. Finally, they gave the judgment that Apple has made a low tax rate agreement with Ireland and was offered an illegal aid. Margret Vestager, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission has confirmed that the General Court of the European Union has committed few errors and he moved this case from them to the European Court of Justice. They also wanted to bring the light to the unfair aid of states in taxes to the multinational companies.

European Commission brought Apple to court for underpaying taxes on profits that were generated from 2003 to 2014 across the European countries. As per them, Apple used two shell companies located in Ireland to report its profit. But this profit was generated from the business across the European bloc. Contrary to the European Commission, the Irish government has stated that it had not granted any special state aid to Apple. They also notified that Apple had always paid them the correct amount of tax.

Like each country, the European Union has set some rules for the operation of multinational companies in their location. They have also framed a policy regarding the tax regime. A multinational organization can pay taxes in bulk on their gross revenue to the European country where they have their regional headquarter.

Apple and some other US multinational companies have their head office in Ireland. Ireland is a small country and they do have very low tax regimes. For this reason, the multinational companies pay a very low amount of taxes to them and Ireland remains a favorite destination for them.

Apple has commented that they operate in Ireland in the same way as they operate in other countries. They stated that they have always paid the taxes and there is no discrepancy in it. They have abided to the law of the Irish government always. It is forecasted that this appeal can take up to two years.