Should Ireland appeal the Apple ruling

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charlie007 said:
Are we really?
There is of course much wealth held by individuals in the country but The State has a debt of some €220Billion and the pension 'liability' could be double that.
You have on many occasions correctly contradicted the misnomer of us bailing out the banks.
Please stop saying we are such a rich country when our per capita debt is one of the biggest in the developed world?!
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On wealth per capita basis, ireland is on a par with Spain but is a long way behind Germany France and UK. The government might be flush with cash but that's the size of it. We hold much less wealth in shares and investments outside of property than our European peers.
 
charlie007 said:
Are we really?
There is of course much wealth held by individuals in the country but The State has a debt of some €220Billion and the pension 'liability' could be double that.
You have on many occasions correctly contradicted the misnomer of us bailing out the banks.
Please stop saying we are such a rich country when our per capita debt is one of the biggest in the developed world?!
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+1

We're clearly not a rich country, except in comparison to hapless second and third world countries.
 
joe sod said:
On wealth per capita basis, ireland is on a par with Spain but is a long way behind Germany France and UK. The government might be flush with cash but that's the size of it. We hold much less wealth in shares and investments outside of property than our European peers.
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If I had €5k in cash under the mattress but also owed €100k, I would not consider myself flush with cash?
 
joe sod said:
They will be looking for their share of that taxation as the central argument is that tax should be paid at point of sale rather than where a multinational chooses to headquarter. It puts the whole strategy of moving IP from the US to Ireland in doubt now
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This is conflating two separate issues. The OECD is pushing for taxation at point of sales under its Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) initiative - this is still a work in progress.

Apple (and the government) just claimed the IP was held in a 'stateless' company so no tax was due... Which the European court of justice has decided is wrong.

The €13 billion is now ours to waste as we see fit.
 
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joe sod said:
They will be looking for their share of that taxation as the central argument is that tax should be paid at point of sale rather than where a multinational chooses to headquarter.
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Have you ever heard of VAT?

A German buying an iPhone in Germany very much pays VAT in Germany.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Good point.

But we have a very high national income.
We have a very high, artificially high, tax take.

We are better off than most of the countries whose tax take we are robbing.

Brendan
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Fair enough.

But I think the term 'robbing' is a bit strong?

Afterall the money has only been resting in an account??

www.youtube.com

Father Ted's financial irregularities compilation (the money was just resting in my account)

A compilation of Father Ted's bizarre financial irregularities, mostly involving the Lourdes scandal which resulted in him being trapped on the hellish Cragg...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
joe sod said:
They [France and Germany] will be looking for their share of that taxation as the central argument is that tax should be paid at point of sale rather than where a multinational chooses to headquarter. It puts the whole strategy of moving IP from the US to Ireland in doubt now
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That's not at issue here at all.

The very important question of tax being paid at point of sale does not arise in this case, as was explained by our friend the Duke here 8 years ago.

Duke of Marmalade said:
The fact that many believe that profits should be taxed where they are economically earned is a pink mackerel so far as this ruling is concerned. The issue here is that Apple had a sweetheart deal with the Irish revenue (government) that most of its profits could be internally allocated to its "head office" which apparently resides nowhere. Imagine if every company could have a piece of that.

There is no question but the illegal state aid should be returned to Ireland, the argument that it was economically earned elsewhere is yet to be thrashed out and will surely not be retrospective, and it is of course a much more important matter so far as FDI is concerned.
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He was also right about the ultimate outcome of the case.

Duke of Marmalade said:
Should we appeal? IMHO we have no chance of winning and in any event the practice has stopped going forward so a win brings no material gains whatsoever. The "bad lawyers" comment is brilliant but even good lawyers won't reverse this. So the main purpose of an appeal is optics.

How are we going to get that Tower of Babel which is our "government" to agree on that?
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Corporation tax at point of sale, and minimum rates for corporation tax were hot issues for a number of years. France in particular was behind these moves.

The minimum rate debate is essentially over with 15% being set as the minimum rate.

Tax at the point of sale was never developed and is for now at least a dead duck.

In all win for Ireland on both counts. We still tax the same base just at a higher rate. Somebody knows what they are at, I wonder can they build houses.
 
cremeegg said:
Do you genuinely not understand
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I understand that Apple employs 6,000 people in Cork who are presumably providing a material share of the value produced when I purchased the iPhone I’m typing on right now.

I also understand that Audi doesn’t pay corporation tax in Ireland on cars that it makes in Germany.
 
Sarenco said:
That surprises me.

Can you point us to anything to back this up?
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www.statista.com

Countries with the highest wealth per capita 2022 | Statista

Switzerland ranked as the country with the highest average wealth per capita. The United States followed behind.
www.statista.com www.statista.com

Its a statistic of the countries with the highest average wealth per person not GDP per capita, so it gives a more realistic measurement of actual wealth held individually not the productivity of multinationals
 
Protocol said:
Am I correct in thinking that these profits will now be taxed twice?
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Yes, probably with a credit for Irish tax paid.

I'm still wading through the Court's decision.

As a preliminary, I note that in some instances, it relied on its previous judgements, which are of a much later date than the original Irish tax rulings.
 
Purple said:
Because our economy is built on stealing taxes from other countries. Without that we wouldn't have billions to waste on the bad delivery of public services or on our extremely generous welfare system.
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What exactly do you mean by this. It is something I hear said a lot by very different people with very different perspectives. How do you see us as stealing taxes, and from where.
 
cremeegg said:
How do you see us as stealing taxes, and from where.
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It’s complete nonsense.

National tax authorities within the EU can, and do, liaise all the time over how to treat activity by firms across multiple jurisdictions.

All within the EU Treaty framework that broadly allows member states to set their own corporation tax rates and base.
 
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