Apple Must Pay $14 Billion-Plus in Back Taxes to Ireland, EU Court Rules

Apple lost its fight to reverse a decision by the European Union that it owes €13 billion ($14.3 billion) in back taxes to Ireland.

The EU’s top court, the European Court of Justice, confirmed the European Commission’s 2016 decision finding that Ireland had granted Apple approximately €13 billion in illegal tax benefits related to the tax allocation of profits of the Irish branches of two of the tech giant’s subsidiaries.

Also Tuesday, the European Court of Justice upheld a €2.4 billion ($2.6 billion) antitrust fine against Google, originally levied in 2017 by the European Commission on Google “for having abused its dominant position in several national online search markets by favouring its own comparison shopping service over those of its competitors.”

The ECJ’s rulings are final and cannot be appealed.

The Apple case dates back to August 2016, when the European Commission ruled that Ireland had extended illegal tax benefits to Apple for more than a decade. Ireland was ordered to calculate and recover additional taxes from Apple for the period June 2003 through December 2014 (as of January 2015, a new Irish law eliminated the application of the tax opinions from that date forward). Apple won an appeal in a lower court reversing the decision, but the ECJ on Tuesday upheld the original 2016 decision.

In a statement, an Apple rep said the company was disappointed with the decision. “The European Commission is trying to retroactively change the rules and ignore that, as required by international tax law, our income was already subject to taxes in the U.S.,” the spokesperson said.

The Irish government said in a statement that it will “respect the findings” but also said, “The Irish position has always been that Ireland does not give preferential tax treatment to any companies or taxpayers.”

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement Tuesday, “Today is a huge win for European citizens and tax justice. The Commission will continue its work on harmful tax competition and aggressive tax planning.”

In an SEC filing Tuesday, Apple said it expects to record a one-time income tax charge for its fourth fiscal quarter (ending Sept. 28) of up to $10 billion, “which will increase the company’s effective tax rate for the quarter.”