On the day of the press conference, news came that Apple had lost a huge tax evasion case.
On September 10th local time, Apple lost a tax case in Ireland at the EU Supreme Court, which means it will pay up to 13 billion euros (approximately 102 billion yuan) in taxes.
Lost in Irish tax lawsuit
It is reported that Apple has been engaged in a 10-year tug of war with the European Union over the Irish tax issue. After the final ruling of the European Union was announced, Apple expressed disappointment with the ruling. The company stated in a statement, "The European Commission attempted to retrospectively change the rules and ignored the fact that Apple has already paid taxes in the United States under international tax law
This case can be traced back to 2014, when the European Commission launched an investigation into Apple's tax situation in Ireland, which is the headquarters of Apple in the European Union.
In 2016, the European Commission ordered the Irish government to recover up to 13 billion euros in unpaid taxes from Apple, citing that Apple had obtained "illegal" tax benefits from Ireland over the past 20 years. The EU claims that Ireland artificially reduced Apple's tax burden to 0.005% in 2014 through two tax incentives policies.
In 2019, Apple and the Irish government appealed to the European Commission. Apple has stated that the record breaking EU tax order goes against reality and common sense; Ireland has long used low tax rates to attract large technology companies to establish headquarters in the country.
In 2020, the EU General Court supported Apple and overturned the European Commission's 2016 decision, stating that the EU had failed to prove that the Irish government had granted illegal tax benefits to Apple.
In May 2023, the EU competition regulatory agency appealed to the EU Supreme Court, requesting to overturn the ruling of the EU General Court. The tax case against Apple is part of EU antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager's crackdown on transactions between multinational corporations and EU countries. Vestager previously stated that ensuring that all companies, big or small, pay their fair share of taxes remains a top priority for the committee.
In addition, in March of this year, the European Union imposed an anti-monopoly fine of 1.8 billion euros on Apple for abusing its dominant position in the music streaming app distribution market.
Google fined 2.4 billion euros
The Google Marketplace monopoly case was also ruled on alongside the Apple tax collection case. On the same day, the European Union ruled that Google was fined 2.4 billion euros for abusing its monopoly power to suppress competitors.
This case began in 2017. In June 2017, the European Commission made a ruling on the antitrust case of "Google Shopping" and imposed a fine of the above-mentioned amount on Google, citing the company's abuse of its dominant position in the search engine market. Google subsequently appealed to the Permanent Court of Justice of the European Union.
In 2021, the Permanent Court of Justice of the European Union rejected the appeal decision, mainly because it found that Google still engaged in unfair practices of guiding users to use its own shopping services. The Permanent Court of Justice of the European Union believes that Google's move violates the principle of fair competition.
A Google spokesperson stated that the company is "disappointed" with the ruling of the European Court of Justice, as the solution proposed by Google to the EU in 2017 clearly helped other shopping services gain more clicks.
Since the beginning of this year, with the full implementation of the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European Commission has launched multiple investigations into tech giants including Apple, Google, and Meta, forcing some American tech companies to change their business terms in Europe.