This is not correct and it has everything to do with US corporate tax deferral. The accounts for Apple in Ireland only includes profits created by the value added in Ireland (relatively small) and profits on sales in Ireland (ditto). All the rest accrues to the US parent company. This is a matter of record.
France does absolutely not care whether the money is taxed in the US or not. They want to tax the money internet giants make in France. All the money these companies make is shifted (by "license agreements") into tax havens, thus they don't see a penny. Apple Ireland did definetly not only include profits made in Ireland (only after shifting them to Ireland, which kind-of made them Ireland profit but ripped off everyone else).
edit: For reference - Apple booked $120bn revenue[1] in Ireland in 2017, which amounts to $18,461 per inhabitant.
Where a company books revenue has pretty much nothing to do with corporation tax which is based on _profit_.
This discussion has no chance of being productive if the distinction between profit and revenue is constantly blurred. It wouldn't matter if Apple had booked $120bn revenue in France as it's only the _PROFIT_ booked in France which is taxable.
What France wants to do has to be compatible with the decades of building international consensus and rules on taxing supply chains that span the globe. Unless they want to see their car, aviation, food, etc. exports subjected to revenue based taxation in international markets.
Taxing revenues of imports is a called a "duty" nothing to do with corporation tax.
I gave you the revenue number so that you understand that Apple has been shifting their European business through Ireland to avoid paying taxes elsewhere.
Okay, let's talk about profit. $34bn in 2014, so not even at the peak. Apple made $34bn profit in Ireland and pretty much none elsewhere in the EU?
> Unless they want to see their car, aviation, food, etc. exports subjected to revenue based taxation in international markets.
Surprise surprise, European countries have to pay profit taxes in the US. Those profits cannot be shifted as easily as digital profits.
The revenue number is irrelevant when it comes to corporation tax, don't you agree? If you do agree, why mention it? The discussion is complex enough without introducing unrelated numbers.
The figures I've seen published suggest that Apple declares 3 or 4bn _PROFIT_ a year on their Irish operations. This is about 3 or 4% of the REVENUE which passed through the Irish operations which does not seem unreasonable for a logistics operation. Apple makes 35% or 40% margin on sales which means that the VAST amount of profit is booked in the US.
> European countries have to pay profit taxes in the US
This is simply not true. I've been involved in selling stuff to the US from Europe and we did NOT have to pay "profit taxes" on our sales.
