Re:The Story of Apple's $14B Tax Bill
by matwood on Tuesday December 20, 2016 @03:03PM
(#13223424)
Feelings should not be any part of this nor should the concept of 'fair'ness. Either Apple/Ireland followed the law or they didn't.
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Well, Apple followed the law.
But the law was changed in their favour by Luxembourg in a deal to deprive other EU countries of tax by creating sweetheart deals.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the current president of the European Commission, who was prime minister of Luxembourg admitted after the “Lux Leaks” publications that the system was “not always in line with fiscal fairness” and may have breached “ethical and moral standards.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36662636
The only people who suffered directly as a consequence were the leakers
> Former PricewaterhouseCoopers employees Antoine Deltour and Raphael Halet received 12 and nine-month sentences respectively for leaking documents.
I agree that fairness has no place when looking whether someone obeyed the law or not.
Fairness however should be of interest for the people that make these laws.
Define fair. Fair for who? The problem with using fairness as any sort of qualification is that it does not work. That's how the US ended up in the current situation with a high top rate and mountains of loopholes attempting to make it fair.