European Union Will Drop Its Irish Tax Bill Lawsuit Against Apple

• Apple has paid off its $15.4 Irish tax bill including interest of $1.4 billion to the EU.
• Irish finance minister Paschal Donohoe confirmed that government has fully recovered the amount from the company.
• EU’s College of Commissioners will be withdrawing the lawsuit in court in the near future.

An ongoing lawsuit against Apple will soon come to an end after the tech giant paid off its tax debts to Ireland. The European Union is set to withdraw its lawsuit after the tech giant paid off its tax debt of $15.4 billion along with an added interest of $1.4 billion. The sum is being deposited to an escrow holding account in Dublin. However, the tech giant’s trial is still pending, and the transaction will be completed only if Apple’s appeal does not hold up in court.

Ireland’s finance minister Paschal Donohoe revealed that the government has successfully received the full amount in the holding account. He called it a “sweetheart” deal because Apple was asked to pay only 0.05% of its arrangement with Ireland. Donohoe stated, “The government fundamentally disagrees with the [European] Commission's analysis in the Apple state aid decision and is seeking an annulment of that decision in the European courts always confirmed that we would recover the alleged state aid."

Positive news this evening that the @EU_Commission is closing the Court action and dropping infringement proceedings following on from recovery of of alleged State aid from Apple. Always Ireland's intention to comply with our legal obligations in this regard

— Paschal Donohoe (@Paschald) September 18, 2018

The tech giant has not commented on its decision to pay up the taxes. A spokesperson simply stated that the company is working to sort out the recovery process. The European Union deemed the tax break given to Apple as illegal in 2016 as the very slow tax rate gave the company unfair advantage over its competitors.

The EU directed the company to pay back the taxes that were owed to the government of Ireland between 2003 and 2014 along with added interest. The European Commission’s spokesperson Ricardo Cardoso stated that the EU has already received full confirmation of the payment and the lawsuit will be withdrawn despite Ireland’s illegal state aid that was provided to Apple since 2003.

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