SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — Apple has not fully paid the $13.9 billion it owes to Ireland in illegal tax benefits even though the deadline has passed, the European Union’s competition said this week.
“Well the recovery is not done yet but we have been working with the Irish authorizes and we can see that they are moving forward to do the recovery of the unpaid taxes,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said during a press conference.
“It’s a tricky thing to do because it’s a large sum so of course you have to figure out how to do that. It’s not as an escrow account in some of the other cases where it might be 25 or 30 million euros … and therefore I do respect that it’s a complicated matter and it may take a little more time.”
Last year, the Commission ruled that Ireland must recover 13 billion euros in “illegal tax benefits” from Apple. The ruling came after the Commission found the U.S. technology giant paid an effective tax rate of 0.005 in Ireland in 2014.
The deadline for Ireland to recover the money into an escrow account was January 3. But the money has still not been repaid.
“We are continuing to make progress of the recovery from Apple with the full cooperation of the company and the EU Commission,” a spokesperson for Ireland’s Ministry of Finance told CNBC in an email. “The Commission are satisfied with the progress we are making. We have committed to complying with the decision and we fully intend doing that.”
Both Ireland and Apple have pledged to fight the ruling in European courts, Vestager said she’s unsure of when the appeals process could begin. The Irish government has also been highly critical of the decision.
