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Apple forced to pay back tax to Italy

by on30 December 2015


Will help with its debt crisis

The Italian government has told Apple that it is to stop mucking about and pay back the $348m it did not pay in the broke country.

The demand follows an investigation into tax fraud allegations where Apple failed to pay €880m in tax between 2008 and 2013. Apple finally settled with the Milan prosecutors to pay about half the sum.

Surprisingly Apple has not commented on the case and the Tame Apple press failed to mention much about it. But Jobs’ Mob has previously denied attempting to escape paying tax owed on profits made around the world.

Apple Italia tried to avoid paying tax by having its headquarters in Ireland which has one of the lowest levels of corporation tax in the EU. Ireland taxes corporate earnings from normal business activities at a rate of 12.5 per cent compared with 27.5 per cent in Italy.

The Fruity cargo cult made a billion euro in Italy between 2008 and 2013 but for some reason only paid 30 million euro. Even in Italy, that was taking the Nintendo a bit.

Jobs’ Mob might find other countries will follow Italy’s lead. A European Commission is carrying out an investigation into the tax arrangements of numerous multinational companies accused of using cross-border structures to reduce their tax bills, sometimes with the help of secret and potentially illegal "sweetheart" deals.

Apple's activities in the Republic of Ireland are currently subject to that investigation, which is due to announce soon whether tax breaks designed to secure the company's extensive investment in Ireland amounted to illegal state aid.

The company's chief executive, Tim Cook, has rejected accusations that the firm has been sidestepping US taxes by stashing cash overseas, insisting: "We pay every tax dollar we owe."
Of course in his head Apple only owes tax when it thinks it owes tax, which is hardly ever.

On a visit to Ireland in November that he was confident the Dublin government and his company would be found to have done nothing wrong.  Although in Rome the Apple stores are known by the name iCON which should sort of give the game awy a bit.

Last modified on 30 December 2015
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