Apple is selling to the whole of EU. Is it unreasonable to conclude that they should have known to follow the EU laws rather engaging in a tax scheme offered by Ireland?
I'm not entirely sure what to think myself about the fairness of this. But going forward I definitely prefer that corporations will have to be careful about engaging in unfair tax deals in the EU.
Otherwise those corporations would just be looking for the next country to take advantage of - risk free.
Amazon got away with it and so did Fiat, smaller sums and in Luxembourg and Netherlands, still, company specific tax deals based in country specific laws.
Apple clearly picked the wrong horse, but unless there’s actual reform (which will likely cause a whole slew of other issues) the tax setup of multinational companies will carry on, maybe not risk free, but it’s still a win for them long term no matter what.
I'm not entirely sure what to think myself about the fairness of this. But going forward I definitely prefer that corporations will have to be careful about engaging in unfair tax deals in the EU.
Otherwise those corporations would just be looking for the next country to take advantage of - risk free.