EU May Punish Ireland Over Apple Tax Row: What You Should Know

Even as Apple gears up for its financial conference on Nov. 2, where it is set to announce another profitable quarter, the company's financial schemes were once again under scanner, with the EU rebuking Ireland for not collecting due taxes from the tech giant.

According to the financial results guidance for the fourth fiscal quarter issued by the company’s chief financial officer, Luca Maestri, Apple is set to announce quarterly revenue of $49-52 billion, with a gross margin of 37.5 percent and 38 percent with a tax rate of 25.5 percent.

Meanwhile, the European Commission is set to issue a non-compliance issue to Ireland for its failure to collect a tax bill of 15 billion euros ($17.6 billion) from Apple, Bloomberg reported Monday.

While the company does most of its production in China and research and development in the U.S., it is located in Ireland for tax purposes.

The commission had slapped Apple with the multi-billion euro bill, saying it had received unfair financial deals from Ireland which substantially reduced the company's corporate tax.

It had asked Ireland to collect the due money by Jan.3, but the country had failed to do so.

Apple and Ireland are appealing the decision, while the commission is pushing for stricter regulation — it may go so far as to sue Ireland in EU courts in Luxembourg, but first, it is expected to hit Ireland with a non-compliance notice next week.

While Ireland’s Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe considers EU’s demand unjustified, the country will need to collect the taxes and put it in an escrow account pending appeal. If the appeal is successful, the money would be returned to Apple.

However, according to the Bloomberg report, the appeal could take as long as five years. And the Irish government is seeking money managers to invest the money in the interim. In the worst case scenario, Apple might not only have to pay its due taxes, Ireland could also be fined heavily for non-compliance with EU orders.

The EU has recently started tightening the noose around large tax evaders — mostly tech companies like Apple — and France, Germany, Italy and Spain have called for taxing companies on their revenue and not on their profit, as is being currently done.

“We should no longer accept that these companies do business in Europe while paying minimal amounts of tax to our treasuries. The amounts raised would aim to reflect some of what these companies should be paying in terms of corporate tax,” the finance ministers of the four countries stated in a joint letter issued last month.

They have proposed a new mechanism — an equalization tax — which will tax a company according to where it will create value, and not where it is located.

This means that Apple, for example will be taxed according to where it sold its phones, rather than being able to evade taxes by merely relocating to tax havens.

Companies such as Apple and Amazon are now nearing trillion dollars in valuation, yet these companies are, in the current global financial system, able to avoid taxes by just relocating their finances.