‘ Don’t appeal apple ruling’

AS the Apple EU € 13 billion tax scenario rumbles on, local businessman Seamus Maye ( pictured right) says he believes Ireland should not appeal the ruling.

Seamus, of the International Small Business Alliance, said the Americans are not going to put up with the way Ireland has facilitated tax haven status for companies over the last decade.

“Michael Noonan made a decision to appeal the ruling along with Enda Kenny and then they had a Dáil debate - to debate what? Nothing because the decision had already been made.

‘ What the established parties said was that this was an attack on our 12.5% Corporate Tax and our tax laws in general. If they knew the history of the EU, in 1957 when the Treaty of Rome was signed, central to the Treaty was Competition Law. Competition Law was basically divided into two areas, State Aid and then there’s cartels and the abuse of dominance. This is written into the European Constitution since 1957, what this issue is about with Apple is very simple. Was there illegal state aid or was there not, it has nothing whatsoever to do with an attack on our Corporation Tax. I’m a huge supporter for Foreign Direct Investment, I believe we should maintain our sovereignty as to how we apply our taxes. This particular issue with Apple, and there are other large companies that apparently benefited from these tax deals, we haven’t read the decision yet, so we don’t fully know what’s in it,” Seamus pointed out.

He said there companies couldn’t compete if they were paying higher taxes to Apple. “There’s nothing wrong with giving State Aid but it must given across the board to every single company. In the case of Apple, this did not happen. Apple were favoured with this tax deal,” he pointed out.

Seamus added: “We have to move on, we should simply admit to the world, yes we did something wrong and we should not appeal it.”