Apple may be slapped with an enormous fine for tax-dodging in Europe

When profit is your key goal you want to do everything to can to not spend money, and this happens all the time with corporations trying their best to avoid taxes. Apple is one such company, it it means that it could be given a record fine by the EU for avoiding its tax obligations.

According to the Financial Times, the EU is investigating Apple for negotiating special deals with the Irish government that other companies based in the country do not receive. Reports indicate that Apple is paying less than 2% taxes in Ireland after having operated tax-free between 1980 and 1991. The deal was apparently struck in 1991 and revised in 2007 to account for Apple’s growth.

The EU can apparently recover up to ten years worth of taxes unpaid due to illegal support for a period of up to ten years. While the exact figure has not been revealed, it is likely given Apple’s size that the fine will be billions of pounds and might even break records for largest fines.

But, similar to what it said in the US Congress last year, Apple claims that it has done nothing wrong, with CFO Luca Maestri telling the FT tat the whole situation was “very unfortunate”, adding, “We know that we didn’t do anything that was against the law and we are very confident that through the investigation it will be shown that there was no selective treatment in our favour at any point in time,”

But Apple isn’t the only company facing the scrutiny of the EU. Both Starbucks and Fiat are facing similar investigations for deals made with The Netherlands and Luxembourg respectively.

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