EU antitrust regulators ordered Apple (AAPL.O) on Tuesday to pay up to 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) in taxes to the Irish government after ruling that a special scheme to route profits through Ireland was illegal state aid.
The massive sum, some 40 times bigger than the previous known demand by the European Commission to a company in such a case, could be reduced, the EU executive said in a statement, if other countries sought more tax themselves from the U.S. tech giant.
Apple, which with Ireland, has already said it will appeal the decision, paid a tax rate on European profits of between 0.005 and 1 percent, the Commission said. ($1 = 0.8954 euros)
The world’s richest company benefited from a “selective tax treatment” in Ireland that gave it a “significant advantage over other businesses,” the European Union regulator said Tuesday in its largest tax penalty in a three-year crackdown on sweetheart fiscal deals granted by EU nations.
More to come.
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