ANN CROTTY: Cook & Co just too powerful
Ireland in a flap after Europe tells it to reclaim €13bn in taxes - and the rest of the world continues its love affair with Apple products
I’m sitting in Finnegan’s pub, 100m or so down from the train station in Dalkey — a village about 15km from the centre of Dublin — Googling "Apple tax" and feeling thoroughly compromised. I’m using my Apple MacBook Air for the Google search, and my Apple iPhone is on standby. A few days earlier Margrethe Vestager, the European commissioner for competition, dropped a bomb when she told Ireland’s government to claim €13bn of state aid back from Apple. This was the estimated value of the tax Apple had avoided through using a contrived tax structure. There is also €6bn or so of interest that has to be claimed back. The immediate impact on the Irish was not as earth-shatteringly dramatic as President Jacob Zuma’s decision to "redeploy" Nhlanhla Nene had been on South Africans last December. But for the Irish the longer-term consequences could be a lot worse than those SA faced nine months ago. Thanks to the canny and unlimited energy of Pravin Gordhan and the determination of a vigorous ...
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