Apple’s chief executive said a looming EU tax ruling on its dealings with Ireland would not affect its presence in the country where it declares much of its overseas profit and where on Wednesday it added 1,000 new jobs.
The EU last year accused Ireland of swerving international tax rules by letting Apple shelter profits worth tens of billions of dollars from revenue collectors in return for maintaining jobs.
A decision on whether the tax deal with Apple constituted unfair state aid is due after Christmas, Irish Minister of Finance Michael Noonan told journalists during a news conference on Wednesday.
It could force Apple to pay substantial back taxes.
“You can tell by our announcement today, we’re all in,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook told Irish national broadcaster RTE in an interview when asked if it would scale back its Irish operations if EU regulators ruled against it.
“If there is an adverse ruling, we’re going to appeal, Ireland is going to appeal and we’re going to support them because there was no special deal, no special arrangement,” Cook said.
“I can’t say for sure what they’ll come back with, but what I do know for sure is if the evidence is viewed on a fair basis, I believe strongly that it will be found that there is nothing wrong done,” he said.
Apple is to add the 1,000 jobs by mid-2017, meaning that at 6,000 workers, about a quarter of its European-based staff would work in Ireland’s second city of Cork, where it is the largest private sector employer. Almost one in 10 workers in Ireland are employed by foreign firms such as Apple.
Noonan said the new jobs showed that the controversy around Apple’s tax deal “hasn’t affected their enthusiasm for Ireland.”
Having expressed confidence in the past that Ireland would be cleared of any wrongdoing, Noonan added that he did “not have a straight read” of what the ruling would be and did not want to be seen as prejudicing the decision.
Apple paid an average tax rate of just 2.5 percent on about US$109 billion of non-US profits in the five years to last year, a fraction of Ireland’s 12.5 percent tax rate.
Cook told RTE that Apple has paid the 12.5 percent rate on all the income that it generates in Ireland.
Meanwhile, US online retailer Amazon.com Inc, search engine giant Google Inc and social network Facebook Inc are to testify at the European Parliament next week on the issue of tax breaks for big businesses, officials said on Wednesday.
Amazon is currently under investigation by Brussels for its sweetheart tax deals with Luxembourg. The “LuxLeaks” scandal that emerged a year ago has put the spotlight on the subject.
Representatives from 11 out of 13 companies invited by the parliament are to attend on Monday, parliament officials said.
The others are Coca-Cola Co, McDonald’s Europe, Ikea, Philip Morris, Walt Disney Co, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, HSBC Holdings PLC and Barclays PLC.
Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc refused, while Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV did not reply, officials said.
Last month Brussels ordered Starbucks Corp and Fiat to each repay up to 30 million euros (US$34 million) in back taxes for deals they had with the Netherlands and Luxembourg respectively.
Decisions on Apple and Amazon are pending.
Additional reporting by AFP
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