Outcome will define us for decades - EC report on Apple tax fine

THE publication yesterday, by the European Commission, of its full ruling in which it concluded that Ireland offered computer and cultural behemoth Apple up to €13bn in illegal state aid intensifies a dispute that will take years, maybe even the bones of a decade, to resolve. 

In the interim, the high-stakes disagreement will undermine important relationships between this country and the EU, the EU and America, this country and America. It will also limit our capacity to offer certainty to those who might invest in this country.

The ruling will also support the argument, made so strongly last week by Oxfam, that Ireland is a top-tier tax haven offering sanctuary to international business in a way that undermines this and other societies. Though the Government rejects this charge — one supported by a US Senate committee and the UN — the zeitgeist suggests the Government’s refutation hardly rings with the credibility that might win the day. This, unfortunately, will further damage our body politic and the faith those who confront inequality can have in it. It also means that we, or at least our Government, will face accusations that they preside over a tax haven until the issue is finalised. It will also unsettle the conscience of the great majority of Irish people who want to believe that this country is a reliable, compliant international citizen rather that a bolt-hole destination facilitating the most aggressive tax planning. This behaviour once won us the unenviable title of “the Wild West of European finance”.