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	European commission says Apple got illegal help with tax breaks by Guardian News, Tax Justice Network, agencies   31 August 2016   European commission says Apple got illegal help with tax breaks. Apple ordered to pay €13bn after EU rules Ireland broke state aid laws, by Sean Farrell and Henry McDonald.   The world’s largest company was presented with the huge bill after the European commission ruled that a sweetheart tax deal between Apple and the Irish tax authorities amounted to illegal state aid.   The commission said the deal allowed Apple to pay a maximum tax rate of just 1%. In 2014, the tech firm paid tax at just 0.005%. The usual rate of corporation tax in Ireland is 12.5%.   “Member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules,” said the European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, whose investigation of Apple’s complex tax dealings has taken three years.   Vestager’s ruling prompted an angry response from Apple and from Ireland and is likely to spark a political row between the US and the EU. The US Treasury said the ruling threatened to damage “the important spirit of economic partnership between the US and the EU”.   The commission said Ireland’s tax arrangements with Apple between 1991 and 2015 had allowed the US company to attribute sales to a “head office” that only existed on paper and could not have generated such profits.   The result was that Apple avoided tax on almost all the profit generated from its multi-billion euro sales of iPhones and other products across the EU’s single market. It booked the profits in Ireland rather than the country in which the product was sold.   Apple and Ireland said they intend to appeal against the ruling.   The figure of 13 billion euros plus interest is 40 times the previous record for such a case and the equivalent of the annual budget for Ireland’s health service. Irish campaigners called for the windfall to be invested in public housing.   The taxable profits of Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe did not correspond to economic reality, the commission said.   Vestager said: “The commission’s investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years.”   Vestager suggested other countries, including the US, might now examine how Apple did business within their borders. These other jurisdictions might then claim a share of the unpaid tax from Apple for the same period.   Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said Apple would appeal the ruling.   The commission’s decision is a rebuff to US efforts to persuade it to drop the case after warnings of retaliation from Washington.   Apple, which changed its tax arrangements with Ireland in 2015, should easily be able to pay the huge tax bill because it has a cash mountain of more than $230bn of cash and securities, mostly held outside the US. The tech group keeps the money outside the US because it would be forced to pay US tax charges if it repatriated the money.   The 13bn euro figure covers only the 10 years before the commission first requested information in 2013. The commission, which does not have the authority to go back any further, said it was up to Ireland to collect the tax from Apple.   The Irish government, however, wants the ruling reversed because it wants to preserve its status as a low-tax base for overseas companies.   Richard Murphy, a tax campaigner and a professor in international political economy at City University in London, said: “This is a great day for the sovereignty of the EU’s nations when it comes to tax. They will now be able to choose their own tax policies knowing another state should not be consciously undermining them when doing so. The Irish state has for too long been committed to tax abuse, unfair competition and secrecy, all of which are designed to undermine fair competition and increase inequality.”   Prof Louise Gracia of Warwick University business school said: “This ruling is a serious attempt at curtailing the power large multinationals have in avoiding their tax liabilities, and sends a warning to countries that facilitate hard-edged corporate tax minimisation strategies.”   She added: “It also shines a spotlight on the paltry levels of corporate tax that large multinationals are actually paying. Even if we accept the job and wealth creation arguments put forward by multinationals as mitigation against tax liability, this has to be within reason.”   Toby Quantrill, Christian Aid’s principal adviser on economic justice, said: “The staggering amount of money at stake here suggests that millions of citizens are paying a painfully high price for multinationals’ cosy tax deals with certain governments.   “This is not a one-off situation – it is part of a damaging race to the bottom in which governments are competing on who can offer multinationals the lowest tax bill. It’s time to get multinationals’ tax affairs out in the open, so we can all see how much they are actually contributing to the rest of society.”   In the US Peter Kenny, senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group, said it was not yet clear which side would ultimately prevail, but that the ruling was a watershed moment. “There’s no telling whether the verdict will stand on appeal, but we know that the landscape is changing for US corporations in the EU.”   He described Vestager’s ruling as “just the tip of the spear – an enormously important ruling” because US-based companies “have traditionally used the EU as a way of circumventing a higher US corporate tax code.”   The internet search engine Google is also accused of evading billions of dollars in due taxes, and is in court actions in a number of national jurisdictions.   http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/opinion-tax-isnt-just-an-expense-its-a-societal-good-and-an-investment-in-all-our-futures-3280862-Mar2017/ http://www.oxfamireland.org/blog/corporations-shift-billions-profit-ireland-avoid-tax http://www.business-humanrights.org/en/tax-avoidance-0/latest-news-on-tax-avoidance   25 August 2016   The US has been accused of “behaving like a tax haven”, in an escalating war of words between Washington and the EU over the European commission’s anti-trust cases against Apple, Google, Amazon and Starbucks.   On Wednesday, the US Treasury threatened retaliation if Europe continues its tax actions against American multinationals.   Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s top anti-trust regulator, is expected to conclude her state aid investigation into Apple as early as next month. If her ruling goes against the Californian tech group, it could be ordered to hand over as much as $19bn (£14.4bn) in unpaid taxes to the Irish government.   The EU has been investigating whether Apple’s tax deals with Ireland, which allowed the company to pay very little tax on income earned throughout Europe, amounted to state aid. The commission is expected next month to rule on the case, the biggest single corporate tax avoidance investigation.   A US Senate investigation in 2013 found that Apple paid little or no tax on profits of at least $74bn over four years by exploiting gaps in the Irish and American tax code.   The EU estimates that corporate tax avoidance costs member states €50m-€70bn euros a year in lost taxes. Much needed monies to fund public services.   A white paper commissioned by the US Treasury secretary, Jack Lew, claimed that Europe was supposedly targeting American companies disproportionately and behaving like a “supranational tax authority”. The claims have now prompted a swift rebuttal from MEPs and the European commission.   “The US Treasury prefers defending the interest of its multinationals rather than promoting international cooperation to fight corporate tax avoidance,” said Molly Scott Cato MEP, a spokeswoman for the Green party on tax affairs in the European parliament.   Campaigners are furious because the US has failed to back two major initiatives designed to combat tax avoidance and money laundering. They are the creation of public registers of the owners of private companies and the automatic sharing of bank account information between countries, known as the Common Reporting Standard.   “The US is behaving like a tax haven by operating a deferral system which allows US companies to stash profits offshore,” said Cato. “The commission is seeking to prevent exactly this sort of free-riding and to ensure that tax is paid where economic value is added.”   America’s 500 largest companies have accumulated a record $2.4tn offshore, according to the pressure group Citizens for Tax Justice. The money, which comes from sales outside of their domestic market, has built up in tax haven subsidiaries because multinationals are refusing to bring the cash into the US, where it would incur a 30% corporation tax charge.   Anneliese Dodds MEP, tax lead for Labour in the European parliament, said: “The timing of this [white paper] seems highly suspect, falling as it does right in the middle of election season in the US. Instead the US government should be working with the EU commission to clamp down on tax evaders and aggressive tax avoiders, rather than criticising attempts to make the system fairer.”   The EU commission said on Wednesday: “All companies, no matter their nationality, generating and recording their profits in an EU country should pay taxes in line with national tax laws.   “Under EU state aid rules, national tax authorities cannot give tax benefits to selected companies that are not available to others. These state aid rules and the relevant legal principles have been in place for a long time.”   Lew’s white paper threatened retaliation, saying the US “continues to consider potential responses should the commission continue its present course”.   The commission has already ruled that tax advantages negotiated by Starbucks with the Netherlands government and by the Italian carmaker Fiat with Luxembourg amounted to illegal state aid. In January, the commission took a preliminary view that Amazon’s deal with Luxembourg also amounted to state aid. A final decision is pending.   Apple, the iPhone maker has paid as little as 2% in tax on its international profits, most of which are routed through Ireland.   Alex Cobham, research director at the pressure group Tax Justice Network, said: “The US Treasury has fired the first shots of a tax war with Europe. And while it’s wrapped up in a claim to defend international tax cooperation, it looks more like an attempt to prevent an effective measure against international tax-dodging.”   August 2016   The Tax Evasion Double Standard.(Citizens for Tax Justice, agencies)   If I refused to pay any taxes until the US government lowered my taxes to a so-called "fair rate," I''d almost certainly be arrested for tax evasion. But when The Washington Post asked Apple CEO Tim Cook about the billions that his company has stashed in tax havens around the world, Cook declared: "We''re not going to bring it back until there''s a fair rate. There''s no debate about it."   And nothing happened, either to Cook or to Apple. Because when it comes to taxes, it''s truer today than ever that only the little people pay.   Apparently though, that''s not enough for the CEOs of multinational corporations, like Tim Cook. He doesn''t just want to avoid taxes, he wants Americans to know that Congress isn''t writing the rules; Apple is.   Dave Johnson from Campaign for America''s Future wrote a great article in the Huffingtopn Post about this titled, "CEO Of Giant Corporation Tells US Government He''s the Boss of Them." In it, Johnson writes:   These days huge multinational corporations are the boss of our Congress. So, CEO Cook gets away with it, and with keeping $181 billion in tax havens to dodge paying $59 billion in taxes. Cook knows he can just come out and say they are not going to pay their taxes until there is a "fair rate."   And he''s right. But Apple is by no means the only corporation doing this.   In March, Citizens for Tax Justice reported that US Fortune 500 corporations are avoiding up to $695 billion in US federal income taxes by holding $2.4 trillion of "permanently reinvested" profits offshore. That''s nearly $700 billion that the largest US corporations -- corporations like Netflix, Nike and Citigroup -- are stashing in offshore tax havens.   And now Tim Cook is setting an outrageous precedent by flagrantly declaring that Apple won''t pay a dime of what''s owed unless the US government does what he says.   It''s not that these corporations don''t rely on tax dollars from the government; they use our interstates, they use our municipal water systems, our court systems protect their patents and copyrights, and their products rely on government-developed technologies like GPS. They just don''t want to pay for it.   Corporate executives like Tim Cook are plainly putting profits and the well-being of their investors ahead of the well-being of the country. Average Americans can''t decide to refuse to pay taxes for any reason.   But a CEO like Tim Cook can simply say that his corporation won''t bring its money home until he gets what he wants -- "no debate about it."   In his piece, Johnson translates exactly what a "fair rate" means:   Huge multinational corporations will tell you a ''fair rate'' would be zero. Or better yet, how about We the People just bow down and pay taxes to them. The corporate tax rate used to be 50%. CEOs complained it was "unfair" so it was lowered to 35%.   In reality, though, the Government Accountability Office estimated in 2013 that the average effective corporate tax rate is only about 17 percent, including state and local taxes -- about the same as an individual who earned $37,000 a year. And right now we are basically paying taxes to them: We buy Apple''s products, they stash the revenue overseas, and then we pay for the roads, water and technologies that their business depends on. It''s average working Americans who are most hurt by this type of corporate tax evasion.   In 1952, about 32 percent of federal revenues came from corporate taxes, and only 8.7 percent came from payroll taxes. In 2016 though, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that the corporate income tax only accounted for about 11 percent of federal revenues, while the payroll tax accounted for closer to 33 percent of total federal revenue.   Think about that: Multinational corporations have nearly $700 billion in unpaid taxes stashed overseas while average working Americans paid for a third of the federal government''s revenues -- over $1 trillion!   http://www.taxjustice.net/2016/08/24/us-treasury-tax-war-europe/ http://www.eurodad.org/taxjustice http://bit.ly/2bz4gU7 http://huff.to/2bgCPRC http://bit.ly/2bVelIq http://bit.ly/2bOtfmA http://robertreich.org/post/149768623100 http://bit.ly/2bUvJAv Visit the related web page
	Innovations for Transformative Change: Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by UN Research Institute for Social Development   World leaders have committed to transform our world and to leave no one behind in the quest for sustainable development. What needs to happen now to enable the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to deliver on its transformative promise? Which policies and practices will lead to social, economic and ecological justice?   Research presented in the UNRISD 2016 Flagship Report, Policy Innovations for Transformative Change, shows that breaking the vicious circle that produces poverty, inequality and environmental destruction requires transformative change that directly attacks the root causes of these problems instead of the symptoms.   Transformative change can be driven by innovative policies that overcome palliative and “silo” approaches, and promote an “eco-social” turn in development thinking and practice.   Innovative policies, which are informed by solid evidence and grounded in normative values such as social justice and sustainability, need to be forged through inclusive political processes, new forms of partnership, multi-level governance reforms and increased state capacity.   * Access the 248 page report via the link below. Visit the related web page
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