Ireland has long been under scrutiny for allegedly providing a tax haven for American companies. During his latest stint in the White House, current presidential candidate Donald Trump name-checked the country in a speech in which he promised to return “trillions of dollars” in tax revenue to the US.
“For too long, our tax code has incentivized companies to leave our country in search of lower tax rates,” he said in 2017. “It happens – many, many companies. They are going to Ireland. They go everywhere.
According to Daly, the CEO’s decision “is not good for Ireland”. “Ireland has always tried to position itself as a country that provides generous tax rules, but rules that are fair,” he says. “It has certainly hurt Ireland Inc.”
Chiara Putaturo, EU tax policy adviser at the charity Oxfam, which has been involved in a long-standing campaign against tax havens, said the ruling “delivers long overdue justice after more than a decade of Ireland standing by and allowing Apple to avoid tax, “, adding that it “”reveals the love affair of EU tax havens with multinationals”.
However, Putaturo said that while Ireland would be forced to repay 13 billion euros from Apple, the case had not banned the use of so-called “sweetheart tax deals” in the EU. In particular, in the Fiat and Amazon cases, which were decided in 2022 respectively. and 2023, the CJEU ruled that similar deals concluded in Luxembourg did not constitute state aid.
“While this decision will impose force [Apple] to pay its debt, the root of the problem is far from being solved,” she says. “Tax havens in the EU can still make good tax deals with large multinationals. The onus to stop this is on the shoulders of EU politicians. Yet they have turned a blind eye to the tax havens within their borders and the harmful race to the bottom that countries like Ireland are fueling.”
Apple said it was “disappointed” by the decision, adding that it “always pays”.[s] all the taxes we pay wherever we work and there was never 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 US tax,” the company said in a statement.
