[SparklingCotton]

Apple should be forced to pay back 10x what they gained in this illegal deal.

It's bleedingly obvious that it's illegal to be taxed differently than other companies. Paying back €13bn is nothing.

Companies that "make deals" on tax anywhere in the world should be effectively banned from the EU market. It's pure evil. Or pay 10x of any gain they have made anywhere in the world by "making deals" on tax, thereby undercutting fair competition in a free market.

[oliwarner]

Playing states against each other is par for the course in the US. Each state can offer wildly different tax structures and incentives, and they all do, because each wants to be the state government that oversaw "6000 new jobs". They've seen similar issues with the collection of sales tax, when one company can "operate" over many state lines.

But saying "hey, that's obviously corruption" isn't enough. We need a good way to restructure tax collection so that the right people get it.

Multinationals paying Luxembourg (Paypal, eBay) or Ireland (Apple, Amazon) for all revenue and operations from the entire EU is wrong, no? How do you fix that?

[rusk]

There is literally a "world" of difference between a collection of trade-aligned sovereign nations, and a single nation of autonomous economic regions. As you mention, it's an accepted part of daily business in the US but everybody pays taxes to the Fed at the end of the day. All governed by the same congress, president, and a coherent political dialogue throughout. That's not to say it'll always remain so.

The particular problem with the EU is that it's a system of "good faith" agreements that has until quite recently been quite weak against cynical attacks.

This kind of dealing undermines the spirit of the EU accords and you can expect it to be dealt with in the course of time - probably through tax harmonisation, which wouldn't then be a million miles away from the american model.

[SparklingCotton]

But even within a region, having corporations do private deals with the government is corrpution.

You are not supposed to be able to get special privileges to your company to the detriment of your competitors.

There can be no free market when justice (and thus taxation) is not blind.

[rusk]

Reminds me of a saying.

Capitalism is a perfectly good system of economics and I look forward to seeing it in place some day.

[rusk]

It's bleedin' blindingly obvious that this is all a matter of corporate strategy. Yeah they should be fined for sure, but as many are keen to point out they keep to the letter of the law. That's not to say the EC couldn't enact some kind of retroactive legislation but that wouldn't be likely as they have their own "special interests" to look after too ...