The president of Apple, Tim Cook, is going to be present at a hearing that the representatives of the European Union have scheduled in January. The reason for its organization is based on the decision of the European Commission to ask Ireland to recover 13 billion dollars from Apple, the amount representing unpaid taxes over 10 years.
The information regarding his presence at this hearing was provided by a member of the Irish Parliament, and everything is as normal as possible. Tim Cook was also heard by the US Senate after Apple was accused of hiding money in foreign accounts to avoid paying taxes in the US.
The European Commission has come to the conclusion that Ireland would have violated EU legislation through the tax arrangements that allow the Apple company to pay lower taxes than in other European countries. Tim Cook will have to defend his company in front of these accusations, as he did in the USA, although there are quite small chances that the payment of that money will be avoided.
Despite this, Ireland supports Apple's position and says that its arrangement is completely legal, but this is very normal. The Irish government managed to boast of the creation of many jobs through this collaboration, the Apple company having thousands of employees in the country and paying serious taxes for them.
Having said that, the president of Apple will have a lot of explaining to do before the authorities for the hundreds of billions of dollars of profit for which 0.0005% taxes were paid.
"Pearse Doherty, Sinn Féin's spokesman on finance and a member of the committee, said there was a strong likelihood that Mr Cook would be willing to appear before the committee given the gravity and implications of the ruling. We will be particularly keen to ask Mr Cook and other senior Apple managers about their appearance at US congressional hearings where they admitted that Apple's effective tax rates for its subsidiaries in Ireland was 2 per cent, well below the headline corporate tax rate of 12.5 per cent .”
