Apple fined £11 billion

Tax avoidance. They were regularly paying about 1% tax on profits. Shameful and ridiculous. Every company twisting the system should be heavily fined (not just paying backtaxes, but interest and fines too) and the executives taking those decision should be jailed.

Blame the governments that entice this activity.

If you, as a business owner, are offered 1% tax rate - you'd take it.

11 billion wasn't it ?

yeah £b

Corrected. The nob jockeys are appealing. So are the Irish government. Apple have about 180 billion in cash reserves, so they can easily afford to pay. Send them to jail as well.

I honestly don't think Apple have done anything wrong.

It's not their fault the Irish Gov offered them a 1% tax rate.

If what they've done is wrong, anyone or any company with offshore accounts are doing the exact same thing.

The Irish government went against EU rules. These Irish tax rules hurt other countries too. I'm sure they are shifting money made in the UK to Ireland, thereby avoiding tax in the UK and paying this ridiculous rate in Ireland. Can you imagine that they made all these profits solely from Ireland? UK profits tax in Ireland deprive the UK economy of a big chunk of tax revenue. Guess which countries in Europe Apple makes most money?

But that's not my point.

If the Ireland allow this to happen and in theory, OK it...then how's that Apple's fault?

Now, IF, as you mention, there's the possibility of fraudulent activity going on with Apple - that's something altogether different.

What I heard yesterday was that this rule was there specifically for Apple. They say others could have exploited it but, if that's the case, why didn't they? They all employ the same 4 big accounting firms with the same knowledge.

Guess it's more down to ethics than anything else.

Ireland, and some other countries, have these 'special' rules for certain large companies. It gets them to pay a small amount of tax in Ireland which basically gets this for 'free'. That's why they are set up by countries and taken advantage of by companies. Believe you and me, the average joe couldn't have done this.

The average Joe wouldn't have £180b in cash reserves. 

but their cash reserves have nothing to do with anything. Enticed to countries or regions/cities with cash handouts or 'grants' these big companies get preferential treatment because of money they can bring or, sometimes more importantly, what they can take away.

No way could Manchester City council refuse any request from City with the huge investment the club has made in the local economy. Investment that Manchester City Council couldn't, or wouldn't make.

You mentioned it - not me.

The way i understood it, they were latterly paying less than 1%! Since around 2013 they were only paying 0.005% around £50 for every £Million they made.

Depends on who did the reporting. I heard it was 0.005% on their turnover or £50 for every £M they earned, rather than profits. But that's still whack.

They should all be hammered, McDonalds, Amazon et al