Cook says EU tax ‘political crap’, but Apple will repatriate billions to US

European Union’s imposition of a 13 billion euro ($14.5 billion) back tax bill on Apple is “total political crap”, chief executive Tim Cook said in a newspaper interview on Thursday, and anti-US bias may have played a role. But in a separate radio interview, he vowed to boost Apple’s tax payments by repatriating billions of dollars in global profits to the United States next year.

On Tuesday, EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager questioned how anyone might think an arrangement that allowed Apple to pay a tax rate of 0.005%, as Apple’s main Irish unit did in 2014, was fair.

“They just picked a number from I don’t know where,” Cook told the Irish Independent, estimating Apple’s average annual tax on its profits at 26%.

Cook said he would fight closely with Ireland to overturn the ruling, which he said had “no basis in law or in fact”. It is by far the largest anti-competitionpenalty imposed on a company by the EU.

“I think that Apple was targeted here,” he said. “And I think that (anti-US sentiment) is one reason why we could have been targeted.”

“I think it’s a desire to reallocate taxes that should be paid in the US to the EU,” he added.

In the interview with Irish state broadcaster RTE, Cook said part of the company’s 2014 tax bill would be paid next year when the company repatriates billions of dollars of offshore profits to the US.

Meanwhile, the European Commission (EC) rejected on Thursday Apple’s criticism, noting the calculations were based on facts and Apple’s own data.

The European Commission’s Competition chief Margrethe Vestager, asked if she accepted that statement, told a news conference in Brussels: “No, I will not. This is a decision based on the facts of the case,” she said.

THE EC REJECTED APPLE’S CRITICISM, NOTING THE CALCULATIONS WERE BASED ON FACTS AND APPLE’S OWN DATA.