Apple Agrees to Pay €318m in Italy Tax Fraud Case

Apple’s behaviour in regards to tax avoidance has alerted the Italian authorities due to irregularities in their tax bill which led to a thorough investigation. In a similar vein to other multinational corporations, Apple has been accused of engaging in complicated measures to avoid paying tax which they have a legal right to pay. Of course, Apple isn’t the only company employing such unscrupulous activities as this is a common theme across numerous big businesses. According to La Repubblica and translated by the BBC, Apple failed to pay €880m in tax between 2008 and 2013.

What Tim Cook gets wrong about Apple's tax avoidance: https://t.co/lrA9M7qNAY pic.twitter.com/geQ4MJPm0o

— Citizens for Tax Justice (@taxjustice) December 21, 2015

This is just another example of Apple’s strategy, as the company has been “parking” revenues in Ireland which has a significantly lower tax rate (12.5%) than the USA and Italy. Italian investigators found evidence of wrongdoing and a massive gap between the company’s revenue and taxation. Shockingly, Apple’s revenue exceeded €1bn between 2008 and 2013 but only paid a mere €30m in tax. In lieu of the strong evidence, Apple’s Italian division has agreed to settle for €318m in court and avoid any further legal proceedings. This demonstrates that Apple is admitting the error of their ways and knows that they didn’t pay the correct amount of tax. Hopefully, this sends a clear message to other companies as well as Apple to stop trying to avoid paying tax in the future.