[HN Gopher] Irish finance minister calls EUR14B tax windfall fro...
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       Irish finance minister calls EUR14B tax windfall from Apple
       'transformational'
        
       Author : adrian_mrd
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2024-10-01 19:52 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | chollida1 wrote:
       | I wonder how long this tax revenue will last, I realize this is a
       | one time lump sum, now that the tax advantage for "locating" in
       | Ireland no longer exists.
       | 
       | > The windfall is being banked in two tranches - EUR8bn this year
       | and the remaining EUR6.1bn next year - giving the country's
       | finance department a projected EUR105bn in tax revenue for 2024.
       | 
       | So this is about 7.6% of their tax revenue for this year and 5.8%
       | of their revenue next year. If AAPL does leave that's a massive
       | loss for the country.
       | 
       | > Combined with the one-off revenue from Apple, the expected
       | corporate tax intake for Ireland is EUR38bn, half of which comes
       | from the top 10 companies, including the tech companies Microsoft
       | and Intel, and pharma multinationals, such as Pfizer.
       | 
       | Ireland could be facing a massive corporate tax loss if these
       | companies just all up and go to a new European country.
       | 
       | Possible destinations are Luxembourg(Amazon, Fiat Chrylser) and
       | the Netherlands (starbucks)
        
         | ManuelKiessling wrote:
         | > If AAPL does leave that's a massive loss for the country.
         | 
         | Is it, though? AAPL didn't pay those taxes before, that's
         | exactly the underlying problem, no?
         | 
         | Ireland would lose _something_ for sure, as the operations of
         | AAPL certainly created some kind of money for the country --
         | but not taxes.
        
           | dotps1 wrote:
           | Before the ruling Apple was paying about 8B in taxes per year
           | to Ireland.
           | 
           | If multinational corporations are no longer able to do a
           | Double-Irish Dutch Sandwich anymore, it doesn't make sense to
           | stay there.
           | 
           | Which means the future losses in a single year from several
           | large multinational corporations leaving will be larger than
           | this one payment.
        
             | SllX wrote:
             | Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich has been dead and
             | replaced several times over for years.
        
             | quitit wrote:
             | >Before the ruling Apple was paying about 8B in taxes per
             | year to Ireland.
             | 
             | > If multinational corporations are no longer able to do a
             | Double-Irish Dutch Sandwich anymore, it doesn't make sense
             | to stay there.
             | 
             | That figure isn't going to change, nor are companies going
             | to be running out of Ireland - the tax strategy has been
             | shut down for more than a decade. Ireland has other
             | features which make it attractive to US businesses,
             | including strong historical ties and being the remaining
             | English speaking member of the EU.
        
         | vfclists wrote:
         | Aren't Luxembourg and Netherlands also in the EU?
         | 
         | Wouldn't the same rules apply?
        
           | AnthonyMouse wrote:
           | The issue is that the rule is highly subjective. So now there
           | is a ruling for how not to structure your tax laws and
           | they'll set out to achieve the same goal in a different way,
           | i.e. they'll be more subtle about it in the future.
        
       | teruakohatu wrote:
       | It was win-win for Ireland. They got Apple investment and jobs
       | for years, at the expense of other states, then "lose" a court
       | case and get a tax windfall.
       | 
       | Some companies might leave but they are not better off elsewhere
       | in the EU so I think most will stay.
        
         | ManuelKiessling wrote:
         | Exactly what I thought -- would be crazy if this was some
         | 5D-chess move from the government after all, but not completely
         | unlikely...
        
         | AnthonyMouse wrote:
         | By this logic the other countries should do the same thing and
         | offer them sweetheart deals in the hopes that the EU will
         | cancel the deal ex post facto and give them the money anyway.
         | 
         | Meanwhile the companies would then have the incentive to take
         | countermeasures, e.g. make it so the EU entity has no assets
         | and would then have no money to pay retroactive taxes and file
         | for bankruptcy if they get rug pulled like this again, or just
         | pull out of the EU and sell there through third party
         | distributors that have razor thin local margins.
         | 
         | Court decisions like this set up perverse incentives.
        
       | almostarockstar wrote:
       | It's a clear headed decision. Every euro of it needs to be spent
       | on infrastructure. We can't fix the shit weather but we can try
       | to bring the country up to modern standards.
       | 
       | IMO, fears of companies leaving are unfounded. We're still the
       | only native English speaking country in the EU and from a
       | business sense, our culture most closely matches that of the US.
       | The Irish government knows where the bread is buttered. There
       | will always be attractive incentives for multinationals to be HQd
       | here.
        
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