European Commission To Appeal Against General Court’s Decision On Apple Tax Appeal

The European Commission is planning to appeal July 2020 ruling by the General Court that sided with the tech giant. The development hints that the European Commission is not in the mood of backing down against the juggernaut technology company and the Irish government’s tax arrangements. The Commission is of the opinion that the General Court made a ‘number of errors of law’. Now it wants the case to be reassessed by the European Court of Justice. This is the highest form of scrutiny in the European Union and is equivalent to the Supreme Court of Europe. European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said that they will continue their efforts to put in place the right legislation. “We will do everything to ensure that all loopholes are addressed and transparency prevails,” Vestager said in a statement.

The ruling by the court had overturned the original USD 15 billion fine on Apple and Ireland. The court had ruled this while stating that there was no evidence to suggest that Apple broke rules related to tax paid there. European Commission argued that this allowed the iPhone maker to avoid taxes European Union revenues. However, Ireland did not raise any dispute with the arrangement. The European Union is saying that paying the right amount of tax was the first priority. Apple has already issued a statement saying that it will review the appeal. But the company maintains that it sees the July 2020 decision by the General Court as final.

A spokesperson of Apple said that the July ruling proves that we have abided by the law in Ireland. The spokesperson also said that nothing has changed since then and the case was never about how much tax the company needs to pay, rather it was about where it is required to pay. Earlier in 2016, the court ruled that Dublin gave illegal tax breaks to Apple. But the European Commission claims that Apple attributed almost all of its earning in EC to an Irish head office which existed only on papers and this helped the company on avoiding paying tax.