> I would prefer the money stay with the shareholders

I thought it couldn't be repatriated anywy, because the US charges a level of tax that isn't 0.005?

    > rather than transferred to European politicians

Yeah, each MEP will get a personal dividend from it O_o

    > if you disagree and think that politicians would
    > make better use of the funds than an individual

This reduces to the absurd very quickly. Yes I think Apple should pay tax. They set up in a 12.5% corporate tax jurisdiction, and I think they should have to pay that, rather than the less than 1% that they did.

In general, U.S. reduces its tax by $1 on foreign income for every $1 of foreign taxes paid on it. So if Apple decides to repatriate the money after paying foreign taxes on it, the U.S. is in effect paying for the increased money going to the EU. (Or presumably would; perhaps the U.S. could argue this additional payment is not a creditable foreign tax.)

If Apple was similarly accused of wrongdoing by the IRS, and told to backpay taxes that they were supposed to have paid, would you still feel similarly?

I'm trying to figure out if you're taking Apple's side because of the Shareholders vs Government angle, or the America vs Europe angle.

Yes, I would. I am not particularly happy with what US politicians do with windfalls. It's not a US vs Euro issue for me. I'm talking about individual vs collective body.

Just as an example, NYC recently sued BNP and used the money partly to buy iPads and iPhones for the police force. Even if a wrong is done, the primary victims are rarely the main beneficiaries and the funds just increase the ever growing administrative state and encourages future shake-downs

> The city has already pledged some of the money toward equipping police officers with 41,000 iPads and iPhones, part of a joint, $160-million initiative with Mr. Vance’s office.

[0] http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2015/05/01/french-bank-settl...

Ok, I understand where you're coming from, but I still don't understand why you would reflexively always side with corporations/shareholders vs the government. Clearly the government needs to raise some tax revenue, in order to fund programs like the US Military and Medicare. And given that the government needs to raise some amount of tax revenue, they will need to put in place tax laws, and there will always be some corporations that try to skirt those tax laws in order to maximize their own profits. In cases where the corporation has genuinely broken the laws, even if it's an "honest mistake", they will need to make amends.

If we applied your principle of universally siding with corporations/individuals paying less taxes than they are supposed to, then no one would pay taxes at all and the government would cease to exist.

If you think that the current tax rates are too high, then start/join a political lobby that seeks to reform the tax system. But given that we do have a current set of tax laws, it doesn't make any sense to universally support those who have been found to violate those laws.

> If Apple was similarly accused of wrongdoing by the IRS, and told to backpay taxes that they were supposed to have paid, would you still feel similarly?

But that's not what's happening, really. If as an individual the IRS wrote to you and said "look, all your tax returns in previous years were in compliance with the law, but we've now decided those laws were wrong and you owe us more money" you might understandably be a little annoyed.

There's a reason that in most (but not all) cases we don't allow new laws to be retroactively applied - because we recognize it to be unfair.

That's not what really happened here though - the court found that they were in contravention of existing law all along. It's not a change in law or retroactive application of new law.

The proper US analogy would be some sort of state level tax break that was later declared unconstitutional and the tax refund you got having to be repaid.

It's not a new law.

Thank you for invoking the newly evolved Godwin's law by suggesting that politicians are a class of people without merit.

It's okay if you disagree and think that you meant to directly invoke images of fascists but it shouldn't be inconceivable why someone would ignore your ill-conceived argument.

They're not without merit but I don't buy into this whole "government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together" romanticization. Government is run by politicians and much of the administrative state (in the US at lease) is delegated to unelected officials.

It won't be transferred to European politicians but to Irish people.

That's money that should never have been in shareholders hands in the begining because illegaly kept as it's unpayed due taxes. Invest your money in businesses that respect the law if you want to avoid this situation.