EU Ruling on Apple’s Taxes in Ireland Sends a Message Across the Atlantic

In late August, the European Union ordered Ireland to collect more than $14 billion in unpaid taxes from Apple. The move followed an investigation by the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, which found that Apple’s effective corporate tax rate on its European profits had fallen from 1 percent in 2003 to just 0.005 percent by 2014. At a press conference announcing the move, the EU commissioner responsible for competition policy, Margrethe Vestager, said that “member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies—this is illegal under EU state aid rules.” EU member states are allowed to set […]