Why Europe Is Ordering Apple to Pay Ireland $14.5 Billion in Taxes Ireland Doesn’t Want

Matt Yglesias:

But in recent years, Vestager and her competition commission have interpreted favorable corporate income tax deals as a form of illegal subsidy. She says that due to its arrangement with the Irish government, “Apple only paid an effective corporate tax rate that declined from 1% in 2003 to 0.005% in 2014 on the profits of Apple Sales International.”

This, she says, is “illegal under EU state aid rules, because it gives Apple a significant advantage over other businesses that are subject to the same national taxation rules.”

The best explanation I’ve seen about this story.

★ Thursday, 1 September 2016