Question

This article discusses the European Commission’s (EC) decision to instruct Ireland to recover taxes from Apple Inc. to the tune of $ 15.3 billion dollars which was basically, as per EC, to correct the tax break extended by Ireland to Apple. Even though Apple didn’t do anything illegal,Ireland did extend these breaks to Apple when the existing tax rates were already low amounted to “favoritism” which may have harmed other economies at the expense of providing gain to Apple as well as Ireland.I believe this is an example of retrospective taxation which would send a wrong message to the business community because there wouldn’t be any sanctity of tax breaks given by any sovereign nation in the European Commission.

Ireland was selfish and naive to give Apple Inc. tax breaks while the rest of many businesses missed out from the benefits. Today the majority of this generation utilizes at least one Apple product that ultimately contributes to Apple's revenue .I believe they deserve to benefit from the tax revenue as they can clearly afford it . This decision that was made will teach future companies to avoid making the same mistake Apple did with Ireland.

DO YOU AGREE WITH THE ABOVE STATEMENT? EXPLAIN

Answer 1

A brief discussion on the above statement will be helpful to the readers to make their minds on the decision of European Commission to recover taxes from Apple Inc. It is already clear from the above statement that Apple Inc. has not made done anything illegal or unethical as far as the tax laws of Ireland are concerned. The company has merely utilized the tax breaks that the Ireland Government has extended to the company. The reason behind the decision of Ireland Government to extend tax breaks was to lure the company to invest huge amount of money in the country. It is an acceptable practice for governments across the globe to attract investment in their countries. By accepting the tax breaks of Ireland Apple Inc. has done nothing wrong and thus, to penalize the company despite no faults of company will certainly send wrong signals to the business community in general. This in turn will make other companies weary of investing in such nations under European Commission.

Thus, the statement that the decision of European Commission to collect $15.3 billion from Apple Inc. will alter other companies from making same mistake is not acceptable as Apple has not committed any mistake in the first place. Accepting the legal tax breaks provided by a sovereign country is not at all a mistake from any stretch of imagination. Hence, the decision of European Commission is not justified and seems harsh for a company that has not committed any mistake. Hence, I do not agree with the above statement in the question.