Apple CEO Tim Cook is not mincing words when it comes to his thoughts on the tax battle facing his company.
“It is total political crap,” said Cook in an interview with the Irish Independent when discussing the European Union’s ruling on Tuesday that Apple must pay $14.5 billion in what it says are unpaid back taxes.
Apple is under fire over allegations it pays little in taxes in Ireland, a country with a low corporate tax rate (12.5%). According to the EU Apple paid just 0.005% on European profits in 2014.
Cook disagrees.
“They just picked a number from I don’t know where,” he said in the interview. “In the year that the Commission says we paid that tax figure, we actually paid $400 million. We believe that makes us the highest taxpayer in Ireland that year.”
Cook says the $400 million was based on Ireland’s 12.5% corporate rate.
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager takes issue with that assessment. “This is a decision based on the facts of the case, looking into Apple Sales International, how they are arranged within Ireland, and with the profit recorded there, how they’re taxed,” she said, according to Irish news site RTE News,
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SOURCE: Eli Blumenthal and Jon Swartz
USA TODAY
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