Apple’s luck with the Irish may be about to run out. Bloomberg reports that Irish finance minister Michael Noonan has pledged to change parts of his country’s tax laws that have allowed big tech firms such as Apple and Google to stash profits to avoid paying taxes in other countries. Specifically, Noonan said that he will propose “a change to ensure that Irish registered companies cannot be ‘stateless’ in terms of their place of tax residency” while adding that Ireland “wants to be part of the solution to this global tax challenge, not part of the problem.”
Although Apple’s tax avoidance schemes, which have included stashing profits in Ireland, have been widely criticized, there’s nothing to suggest so far that the company has done anything illegal. The Securities and Exchange Commission this month cleared Apple of any legal wrongdoing in its tax avoidance practices and said that the company has paid all the taxes that it’s legally required to pay. Apple’s tax payments came in the spotlight earlier this year after the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that Apple allegedly “funneled money through three offshore companies to dodge billions in taxes.”
