Apple Leaders Chime In, Push Back on European Commission’s Decision

“Total political crap” is what Apple CEO Tim Cook called the European Commission’s decision demanding Apple to pay $14.5 billion in back taxes.

Now, other Apple leaders are chiming in.

Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri called the $14.5 billion “a completely made-up number.”

The company’s general counsel, Bruce Sewell, is also pushing back and standing ground. Sewell told German publication Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Friday (Sept. 2) that Apple “paid tax at the statutory rate of 12.5 percent tax on profits relating to our activities in Ireland. We don’t understand where the commission’s figures are coming from.”

Sewell asserts that Apple paid $400 million in corporate income taxes in Ireland back in 2014, with an additional $400 million in current U.S. corporate taxes paid on those profits. He said Apple also accrued several billion dollars on corporate tax on a deferred basis.

He also said that the commission ignored the fact that the majority of the profits were already subject to taxation in the States.

Earlier this week, as PYMNTS reported, Cook published a public letter to Apple’s European customers, speaking to its history in Cork, Ireland, and that it never received or asked for special treatment from the Irish government.

The commission alleged that Apple made illegal deals with the Irish government, specifically reduced taxes on European business. The $14.5 billion in back taxes the commission said Apple owes refers to the past decade.

Some argue that Apple’s response reveals that the company doesn’t understand certain issues in Ireland and Europe. While at the Ambrosetti forum of business leaders in Italy, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, said: “This is a very strong moral issue, and large companies, even if they’re this large, can’t say, ‘This is not about us; there’s no problem here.’”

Both the Irish government and Apple have said they will move forward with appeals against the commission’s decision.