Apple enjoyed Irish tax holiday
Practices had been shrouded from full view
Apple has operated almost tax-free in Ireland since 1980, welcomed by a government keen to bring jobs to what was then one of Europe’s poorest countries, former company executives and Irish officials have said.
Chief executive Tim Cook faced criticism from a Senate subcommittee in Washington on Tuesday over the iPad and iPhone maker’s tax practices, which had been shrouded from full view behind secretive tax-exempt Irish-based corporate entities.
Apple, one of Ireland’s top multinational employers, denied avoiding billions of dollars in US taxes and said its arrangements helped fund research jobs in the United States.
The committee revealed that Apple’s Irish companies, some of which are not tax resident in any jurisdiction, allowed the group to pay no tax on much of its overseas earnings in recent years.
Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the subcommittee, said Apple had sought “the Holy Grail of tax avoidance”.
A former company executive and Irish officials said the almost tax-free status dates all the way back to Apple’s arrival in County Cork 32 years ago.
Apple must have seemed attractive to Ireland and to Cork. Amid a generally moribund Irish economy, Cork had been hard hit by the closure of its shipyards and a Ford car plant, and in 1986 nearly one in four were out of work in the city.
In the early days, Apple’s staff sat down to meals together. Now the company employs 4,000 in Ireland and is the country’s biggest multinational employer.
“There were tax concessions for us to go there,” said Del Yocam, who was Vice President of manufacturing at Apple in the early 1980s. “It was a big concession.”
In fact, the deal was about as good as a company can get.
“We had a tax holiday for the first 10 years in Ireland. We paid no taxes to the Irish government,” one former finance executive, who asked not to be named, said.
Apple wasn’t an exception, although it was among the last to enjoy such favourable treatment. From 1956 to 1980, Ireland attracted foreign companies by offering a zero rate of tax, according to the Irish government’s website. Eligible companies arriving in 1980 were given holidays until 1990.
“Any multinational attracted into Ireland that was focusing on the export market paid zero per cent corporation tax,” said Barry O’Leary, CEO of IDA Ireland, which is charged with attracting investment into Ireland.
Apple said it pays all the tax due in every country where it operates. It declined to comment on the tax treatment it received in the 1980s.
As part of Ireland’s accession to the European Economic Community, precursor to the European Union, in 1973, it was forced to stop offering tax holidays to exporters. From 1981, companies arriving in Ireland had to pay tax, albeit at a low 10 per cent rate, providing they qualified for manufacturing status.
Apple’s investment was a major coup for Ireland. At the time, the country was struggling with high and rising unemployment, high inflation and a brain drain of the young and educated through emigration.