EU court orders Apple to pay €13 bln in back taxes to Ireland

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ordered Apple to pay €13 billion (£11 billion; $14 billion) in back taxes to Ireland.

This decision comes after the European Commission accused Ireland of providing Apple with illegal tax benefits eight years ago, News.Az reports citing BBC.

The ECJ said its decision on the matter was final and that "Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid which Ireland is required to recover".

Apple said it was disappointed with the decision and accused the European Commission of "trying to retroactively change the rules".

A separate ECJ ruling on Tuesday also brought an end to a long-running case with Google, with the company ordered to pay a fine of €2.4bn (£2bn) fine for market dominance abuse.

The Apple ruling means the ECJ has finally upheld the decision issued by the European Commission in 2016 after a lengthy back and forth legal process.

The decision covered the period from 1991 to 2014, and related to the way in which profits generated by two Apple subsidiaries based in Ireland were treated for tax purposes.

Those tax arrangements were deemed to be illegal because other companies were not able to obtain the same advantages.

The original ruling came at a time when the Commission was attempting to clamp down on multinational giants whom it believed were using creative financial arrangements to reduce their tax bills, but was overturned by the lower court of the ECJ in 2020 following an appeal by Ireland.

That verdict has now been set aside by the higher court, which said it contained legal errors.

Apple said in a statement: "This case has never been about how much tax we pay, but which government we are required to pay it to. We always pay all the taxes we owe wherever we operate and there has never been a special deal.

"The European Commission is trying to retroactively change the rules and ignore that, as required by international tax law, our income was already subject to taxes in the US.
"We are disappointed with today’s decision as previously the General Court reviewed the facts and categorically annulled this case," Apple added.

The bad news for Apple comes a day after the tech giant released its new iPhone 16 range.

News.Az