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"[Treasury Secretary] Lew has contacted Vestager urging her to avoid ordering any collection of back taxes from Apple ..."
Not only has the US set up favorable laws allowing corporate profits to be stashed offshore without taxation, now the Obama Administration is working on influencing EU decisions to shield Apple from international taxes. Amazon and McDonalds are also in on this, and Starbucks has already been hit with the EU hammer.
Big money is at stake here - potentially as much as $19B, which would put a noticeable dent in Apple's cash reserves. It's good to have friends in high places.
I see it as Europe awash with refugees, threatened by the Brexit of its second largest economy, and strained by teetering sovereign debt in Greece and other under-performing economies. So where do they look for big chunks of bailout money? To confiscatory foreign tax and EU Competition Commission actions against foreign multi-nationals. The Obama administration is rightfully protecting our companies from the European kleptocracy.
Although I appreciate resistance to punitive taxation, this isn't the Sheriff of Nottingham taxing the peasants of rural England. This is Apple who has made billions in corporate profits and is simply not paying a correspondingly fair share of corporate tax - admittedly, by playing according to rules set up as incentives for them to locate operations in particular countries. I don't buy the argument that Apple or anyone else should be protected from taxation in overseas markets where they have chosen to operate. I also don't buy trickle-down economics - corporations are not passing it on to shareholders, workers, or consumers, and Apple's cash pile is screaming testimony to that. All I'm asking is that Apple and other corporations pay a fair share, but it appears they now have enough political influence to continue to thwart changes to regulations on a global scale. I'd be unhappy if Apple were hit with $19B because that would have ripple effects, but I have to think that's one reason they have kept much of their profits in cash as an insurance policy against any regulatory changes.
