Apple CEO Tim Cook backs OECD multinational tax reform plans
Everyone knows that the global corporate tax system needs to be overhauled, Apple chief executive Tim Cook has said, backing changes to global rules that are under consideration.
The growth of internet companies such as Apple has pushed international tax rules to the limit, prompting the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to pursue global reforms over where multinational firms should be taxed.
The reforms being examined centre around the booking of profits by multinational firms in low-tax countries such as Ireland where they have bases, rather than where most of their customers are.
“I think logically everybody knows it needs to be rehauled, I would certainly be the last person to say the current system or the past system was the perfect system. I’m hopeful and optimistic that they [the OECD] will find something,” Mr Cook said.
“It’s very complex to know how to tax a multinational. We desperately want it to be fair”, the Apple CEO said in Dublin, after receiving an inaugural award from the IDA recognising the contribution of multinationals.
Apple is one of Ireland’s largest multinational employers with 6,000 workers. Its appeal with the Government to the EU’s second-highest court, against the order that Apple must pay €13bn in back taxes to Ireland, began in September and could run for years. Mr Cook said Apple’s belief that “law should not be retrofitted” was at the heart of the case and that the company had great faith in the justice system.
Apple’s commitment to Ireland, which became its first European operation in 1980, was “unshakable”, Mr Cook said. The Apple chief executive also said that more regulation was needed in the area of privacy and must go further than the 2018 European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy laws that handed regulators there significantly more powers.
“More regulation is needed in this area, it is probably strange for a business person to be talking about regulation but it has become apparent that companies will not self-police in this area,” he said.
“We were one of the first to endorse GDPR, we think it is overall extremely good, not only for Europe. We think it’s necessary but not sufficient,” he said.
Reuters
