Re:A Tax Expert Takes Tim Cook's EU Letter Apart Point by Point
by charlesdm on Thursday September 01, 2016 @11:21AM
(#12405960)
This depends on the country. For example, Belgium has a statute of limitations of 3 years on taxes, unless you're committing fraud, then it can be extended to 7. There would be no way to recover those taxes within the current Belgian framework without introducing new laws (retroactively). But retroactively introducing a tax law is generally prohibited by the constitution..
Re:A Tax Expert Takes Tim Cook's EU Letter Apart Point by Point
by marktheknife on Thursday September 01, 2016 @12:26PM
(#12406611)
You're wrong, Sangnoir. The IRS has a 3 year statute of limitations on most audits (beginning from date of filing return or date filing was due), 6 years if essentially the numbers on the tax return are way off, and unlimited if there is tax fraud. There was no fraud here.
Re:A Tax Expert Takes Tim Cook's EU Letter Apart Point by Point
by sangnoir on Thursday September 01, 2016 @04:32PM
(#12408645)
mea culpa on IRS statute of limitations - I am not a tax lawyer/accountant - let alone an international tax accountant. In addition, the Apple/Ireland/EU issue is not directly a "tax" issue, but an illegal subsidy issue by way of taxes - and even that has a 10 year 'statute' from the time of enquiry by the EU. Since the EU made the enquiries in 2013, the period covered became 2003-2015. Whilst there was no fraud in this case, EU law was broken.
The rest of my point remains though - this is not a new law, but a decades-old one.
I'm seeing a lot of comments saying EU's action is "retroactive" or "retrospective" - it is not. The EU law was always there, and Apple and Ireland were both in contravention for all the 13 years. Apple was in compliance with Irish laws, while contravening EU law.
If the IRS audits you and finds that you underpaying taxes for 13 years - you are going to pay all the taxes "retrospectively"! There isn't a 5-year statute of limitations on illegal EU subsidies (or IRS tax evasion).