The issue is not that Apple did not pay tax, nor is it Ireland giving Apple a good deal. Ireland charged tax based on reported earnings in Ireland, not world wide, for a child company of Apple that says it is based in Ireland but has revenue income from around the world.
The EU has decided that all revenue income for that company should be charged in Ireland, although the US say they have also paid tax in the US.
Fundamentally Ireland is saying it did not give a "deal", the EU is saying it calculated the tax incorrectly and the US is saying that the EU's findings are based on no tax being paid elsewhere which was not the case.
As was also pointed oout, Ireland seems to be the scape-goat for all EU decisions. The Irish bail out has already been mentioned in this thread, but for those who are unaware of what happened here is a simple break down.
German companies bought binds in banks (like shares). When the banks started to fail, Germany told Ireland that the tax payer had to pay the bond holders all the investment money and the interest. However if the tax payer had purchased these bonds, they would have never received anything back. They also told Ireland that if they tried to burn the bond holders they would incur trade embargo's to stop Ireland trading in the common market (Ireland makes a loot of money from exports to Europe). So basically it was pay the bond holders or you will have no income.
Ireland is hardly a scape-goat. The commission has dealt in a similar manner with Amazon in Luxembourg, Starbucks in the Netherlands, and Anheuser-Busch InBev in Belgium.
Whether or not there is an agreement between Apple and Ireland or just an understanding that Ireland would not tax them on almost any income is irrelevant. The point of the matter is that the effect of the scheme has been that Apple has paid next to nothing in tax on all European profits in more than a decade, spanning from the sale of your first iPod to your newest iPhone. That income has been channeled through the Irish companies and Ireland has not taxed it with it's usual corporate tax (which, by the way is now merely 12.5 percent). It is appalling.
Sure, there was some news that EC has dealt with Amazon, Starbucks, InBev but did they actually pay anything back? Did they appeal? Last I heard for InBev the Belgian Finance minister said: "the consequences for the companies concerned would be considerable and the reimbursement itself would be particularly complex" aka will take forever and we will probably not really do it.
It has taken a number of years for the investigation of Apple to reach this point, and the investigations of Starbucks, Amazon, and InBev are ongoing. I don't believe your "aka" summary is accurate.
The investigation for those three companies mentioned is complete and they have to pay the taxes. Now if they finally will do after years of appeals that's a different question. That was my "aka" summary.
> Ireland makes a loot of money from exports to Europe
That's the crux of the overall matter, from a political point of view. Ireland benefits from the European market disproportionately more than the EU benefits from Ireland. This is why Ireland ends up being "a scapegoat" - because nobody is particularly happy about their status as the onshore tax-haven of choice for healthy US multinationals, so every time they end in a pickle, they have very few friends (and with Brexit, they effectively lost their biggest one).
The EU has decided that all revenue income for that company should be charged in Ireland, although the US say they have also paid tax in the US.
Fundamentally Ireland is saying it did not give a "deal", the EU is saying it calculated the tax incorrectly and the US is saying that the EU's findings are based on no tax being paid elsewhere which was not the case.
As was also pointed oout, Ireland seems to be the scape-goat for all EU decisions. The Irish bail out has already been mentioned in this thread, but for those who are unaware of what happened here is a simple break down.
German companies bought binds in banks (like shares). When the banks started to fail, Germany told Ireland that the tax payer had to pay the bond holders all the investment money and the interest. However if the tax payer had purchased these bonds, they would have never received anything back. They also told Ireland that if they tried to burn the bond holders they would incur trade embargo's to stop Ireland trading in the common market (Ireland makes a loot of money from exports to Europe). So basically it was pay the bond holders or you will have no income.