EU orders Apple to pay back up to €13bn in taxes to Ireland
The European Commission has published a widely-expected decision to determine Apple's tax dealings in Ireland illegal, and ordered the US tech giant to pay up to €13bn in back taxes to the government there.
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"Selective treatment" was given to the makers of the iPhone and iPad by the Irish government between 2003 and 2014, in which it was allowed to decrease its tax rate from 1% to 0.005%, according to the Commission.
The findings of the three-year investigation into Apple's taxes were released on Tuesday by Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
"The Commission's investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years," said the statement accompanying the ruling.
Apple fell by 1.7% in premarket trading on Tuesday.
The controversy surrounds two of Apple's subsidiaries which are headquartered in Ireland but controlled in the United States, Apple Operations Europe and Apple Sales International. The Commission has ruled that these subsidiaries should have paid tax on their global income by the Irish tax authority.
Both Apple and the Irish government have denied any wrongdoing. Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Charlie Flanagan said the government did not act favourably towards Apple, saying "we don't do deals with corporations".
The US company was one of the first of many firms to relocate operations to the Emerald Isle due to its attractive corporate tax rates, at times as low as 2% compared with 35% in the US.
The report released by the Commission made a suggestion that Ireland had been lenient on Apple's taxes as the company brought a lot of jobs to the area.