Apple gets in trouble in EU’s $14 billion tax order

An EU tribunal made legal errors while ruling in favor of Apple for over $13 billion euro ($14 billion) tax order and the case should be reviewed again, Europe’s top court said on Thursday.

EU’s antitrust Chief, Margrethe Vestager was the head of this tax crackdown against deals between companies and EU countries for ‘unfair’ state aid.

In 2016, the European Commission said Apple has gained from two Irish tax rulings for over 20 years. With this upper hand, Apple reduced its tax burden to as low as 0.005% in 2014.

Advocate General Giovanni Pitruzzella at the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) disagreed with this ruling and argued that CJEU judges should set aside the general court ruling and refer the case back to the lower tribunal.

In his non-binding opinion, the top court advocate said that the General Court had made a series of errors, which allowed Apple to evade the tax order and conduct a false assessment of the situation.

On this subject, Ireland’s Minister of Finance, Michale McGrath said that the correct amount of Irish tax was paid and that Ireland provided no state aid to Apple.

Meanwhile, an Apple spokesperson commented on this new report and thanked the court for the latest session “The General Court’s ruling was very clear that Apple received no selective advantage and no state aid, and we believe that should be upheld”.

For now, there’s no information available about the upcoming action but CJEU, which will rule in the coming months will follow around four in five such recommendations from advocates.

(source)