I'm sorry, but a selectively enforced law, only applied retroactively with NO attempt to curb the practice proactively is definitely punishment for whomever they arbitrarily choose to apply it to. Were there an attempt to actually punish the offenders (the states making illegal laws), one could believe they are making an attempt at preventing this law breaking. Otherwise, one can't help but see this as one of those laws left on the book to build offenders.
> Hopefully [...]
Exactly...hopefully. The EU doesn't enforce this evenly, they don't attempt to proactively prevent it, etc. To understand the real reason these enforcements occur, ask yourself why the EU doesn't take preventative action. You'll eventually arrive at the real answer.
Do you think it is easy to prevent? Could you describe how you'd do it, by citing the laws? If you can't, why do you assume it is so easy to prevent? Why do you assume malice?
> Exactly...hopefully. The EU doesn't enforce this evenly, they don't attempt to proactively prevent it, etc. To understand the real reason these enforcements occur, ask yourself why the EU doesn't take preventative action. You'll eventually arrive at the real answer.
If I see someone breaking the law, and there are no proactive measures in place to prevent the law, then that means that the intend of the lawmaker is illicit?
What makes you think the EU can enforce this evenly? The whole structure of double Irish with a Dutch sandwich isn't even available to EU companies to begin with.
You gotta start somewhere, if you want to fight it. Same with the war against drugs. Would the drugs baron's defense be: "but the others are frolicking around freely?" Would your response still be when the first action is being taken: "they're not doing enough to prevent?"
As for other tax avoidance, yes, the EU and its states are most definitely looking into those. Starbucks is an example I already mentioned elsewhere throughout the thread (hint: Ctrl+F). Here's another example regarding the Dutch railroad company [1]. That's also an Irish construction, btw.
[1] https://www.ad.nl/economie/fiscus-onderzoekt-ierse-belasting...
While I cannot cite the specific laws, when a jurisdiction makes rules regarding contractual arrangements like this, and they are continually broken, I would expect they insert themselves into the process sooner rather than later. Why not require all member state tax arrangements that are below a required threshold be submitted to the EU tax regulators for approval? Instead of waiting on the regulators to get around to them anyways? And put leverage on the countries to be punished if they don't follow these rules? What leverage can the EU put on a country to abide by EU law? Why is that leverage not being applied here?
I think the analogies with burglary and drug war and what not aren't really helpful. When I say "evenly" I don't mean they have to have the resources to apply to everyone. I just mean sans prejudice. I'll just take a statement saying what their priority order is? If they just come out and say "largest offenders first", I think that's ok.
To reiterate a point I made in the above paragraph, what leverage does the EU have to keep member states from flaunting their laws? Why is that leverage not applied to Ireland and Luxembourg in this instance? I am a bit unfamiliar, so I will take any information on what the EU is doing to stop countries from doing this.
Because it isn't in their benefit to, just like the interests of California might not align with those from Delaware, or those from California or Delaware might not align with those from the federal government. Ireland benefited as well from these deals via more tax income, and more jobs. So it is in the benefit of the Irish government to stall this process as much as they can. It buys them time, and there's seemingly no fine anyway. At least, not yet.
> I'll just take a statement saying what their priority order is? If they just come out and say "largest offenders first", I think that's ok.
They don't even know which company is the largest offender before they researched it. Looking at the article, it says: "The decision on Amazon follows a three-year long investigation by the European Commission, which said in 2014 that it had suspicions the arrangement had broken EU rules" 3 years of investigation, yet not even a fine. Do you think the EU is making money here, paying people for 3 years for investigating? The clear loser is the European taxpayer. In the long run, the European taxpayer is better off with companies paying tax than without.
I linked you the list of companies following this construction. They're all US companies. If your argument is they should go for EU companies first, well, there are none following _this_ construction.
I'm curious where you're from, so I can get a picture about your news bubble. I assume your native language is English? If you think only US companies are being targeted by tax departments, then you're probably sitting in some kind of bubble, sorry. I already linked various articles throughout this thread. I gave you information regarding Shell and Nationale Spoorwegen (Dutch raidroad company). Allegations, reactions, and investigations to the Panama Papers are another example [1] [2]. If we look specifically at Britain, we can notice football clubs, real estate, but also politicians themselves. That could certainly explain their lack of action towards their own avoidance. However, that doesn't justify it (no "tu quoque"), nor does it mean all politicians resort to tax avoidance.
> To reiterate a point I made in the above paragraph, what leverage does the EU have to keep member states from flaunting their laws? Why is that leverage not applied to Ireland and Luxembourg in this instance? I am a bit unfamiliar, so I will take any information on what the EU is doing to stop countries from doing this.
It is in the article:
"Meanwhile, the Commission said it planned to refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to recover €13bn in back taxes from tech giant Apple."
The leverage just got escalated. The wheels of justice grind slowly...
I've seen my country (NL) getting reprimanded about various things by the EC. An example is that downloading copyright infringed content was legal in NL. In a court case though, NL got reprimanded that it is illegal, so it is now by Dutch law (since 2014 or so IIRC). The Dutch government also got a slap on the wrist regarding Starbucks. Eventually, if local governments don't comply, there are going to be financial consequences. We don't know the outcome here yet. We're 3 years in, still no outcome. Does that mean its unjustified? Seems according to your line of reasoning: Yes.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers#Allegations.2C_r...
It isn't a punishment, stop calling it like a punishment. There is no additional fine. The only thing which has to be paid is the due tax plus interest.
It is you who has to read. From the article:
"Meanwhile, the Commission said it planned to refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to recover €13bn in back taxes from tech giant Apple."
> What keeps Ireland and Luxembourg from doing this again? If the EU is going to strike down state-mandated tax deals, why not just require the tax deals to have approval from them in the first place?
Hopefully Ireland or Luxembourg won't let themselves be allowed to avoid taxes anymore. But since neither Apple, nor Amazon, nor Ireland, nor Luxembourg is being fined (again, there is no punishment) I'd speculate that it might still be lucrative. After all, being able to invest > interest.