EUROPEAN CONSCIENCE – Apple/EU, taxes and multinationals

The European Union can play a fundamental role in protecting citizens from the negative consequences of globalisation and the power of multinationals.

On 30 August 2016, the European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, announced that “Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to €13 billion to Apple”. Those benefits distorted competition within the European marketplace, and so the European Commission instructed Ireland to recover the unpaid taxes. This announcement ignited a storm of protest from Apple and from the Irish government. It also sparked a wider debate about how multinational companies are taxed and whether some form of tax harmonization is essential to the functioning of Europe’s internal market.

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