Stiglitz condemns Apple over Irish tax avoidance

Joseph Stiglitz, one of the world's most respected economists, has lambasted Apple for its role in the European Commission ruling which led to the company owing the Irish government €13bn in tax.

Stiglitz won the nobel prize for economics in 2001, and was chief of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000.

The US tech giant was ruled to have underpaid the tax to Ireland due to preferential treatment surrounding the country's already low corporate tax rate.

Both Apple and the Irish government dispute the decision and both are expected to launch appeals against the ruling.

Stiglitz told CNBC that Apple had been "unambiguously" avoiding taxes and should face the consequences.

"The fundamental point here is Apple unambiguously was trying to avoid taxes and it was doing it in a dishonest way, with complicity from the Irish government, pretending that the money, the profits, the billions of profits it was making, were really being originated in some Irish company that was registered in cyberspace and therefore did not have to pay any taxes," he said.

Ireland's corporate tax rate of 12.5% has allowed it to attract investment from various tech companies for their European bases. However, commissioner Margrethe Vestager found that between 2003 and 2014, Apple paid between 1% and 0.005%.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has angrily denied the claims that the company cheated on its taxation policies, but Stiglitz described his behaviour as "totally irresponsible".

He also called into question the viability of the European project in its current form.

"Europe can only work as a political entity if each country within Europe does not take actions that harm other countries. What Ireland was doing was harming other countries," he told CNBC.