European Court of Justice rejects tax benefits that Ireland granted to Apple. The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) agrees with the European Commission in its fight against the dumping tax and declares that this advantageous system for the multinational constitutes illegal state aid. The Luxembourg judges order Dublin to recover the money, estimated at 13 billion euros.
The ECJ ruling ends a legal battle that began in 2016, when the European Commission found that Apple Group companies had benefited from an advantageous tax system designed in Ireland to attract multinationals (tax rescript) between 1991 and 2014. Brussels said the benefits constituted illegal state aid and provided an incentive for the country to recover money it had stopped collecting. Dublin and Apple have taken the case to the European Court of Justice.
In 2020, the General Court of the EU (GCEU) rejected the European Commission’s decision. This decision gave a boost to tax policies favourable to large companies in countries such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium and dealt a major blow to the fight against tax fraud. dumping budgetary reform which had been initiated by the European Commission.
The first instance judges understood that the Commission had failed to demonstrate that there was an “advantage” compared to the European standard. “The Commission was wrong to declare that Apple Sales International (ASI) and Apple Operations Europe (AOE) had benefited from a selective economic advantage and, by extension, from state aid,” the Luxembourg judges said in 2020. The European Commission has appealed this judgment.
However, the CJEU overturned this ruling. While waiting for the decision to be final, Apple has 14.3 billion blocked in a fund (13,100 in unpaid taxes and 1,200 in interest) since 2018.
In this Brussels battle against state aid, the tax agreement between Ireland and Apple is by far the most important and the European justice has issued different decisions on them. Thus, it approved the decision of the European Commission that required Fiat to return 30 million euros to Luxembourg, but annulled the one that required Starbucks to repay 20 million to the Netherlands and another to Belgium and the favorable treatment of forty companies, with a total value of 700 million, reports Europa Press.
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