Paradise Papers: How an island and Ireland aided Apple's megaprofits
It was May 2013 and Apple CEO Tim Cook was angry. He sat before the US Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, which had completed an inquiry into how Apple avoided tens of billions of dollars in taxes by shifting profits into Irish subsidiaries that the subcommittee’s chairman called "ghost companies". "We pay all the taxes we owe, every single dollar," Cook said. "We do not depend on tax gimmicks…. We do not stash money on some Caribbean island." Ireland bowed to international pressure five months later and announced a crackdown on firms, such as Apple’s subsidiaries, which claimed that almost all of their income was not subject to taxes in Ireland or anywhere else in the world. Now leaked documents shine a light on how the iPhone maker responded to this. Despite its CEO’s public rejection of island havens, that is where Apple turned as it began shopping for a new tax refuge. Apple’s advisers at one of the world’s top law firms, Baker McKenzie, canvassed one of the leadin...
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