Tax professor at UVA Law. I write on U.S. state and EU taxation.
Jul 16, 2020 • 21 tweets • 5 min read
1/ Second thread on Apple.
Tl;dr: #Apple deserved to win. The #EC should reform, not abandon, its approach to tax state aid enforcement.
2/ Apple was a huge upset and a major blow to Commission’s plan to use state aid to combat tax avoidance. I have argued for years that the EC’s legal reasoning in these cases is deficient, so of course I’m glad Apple won. But I’m still disappointed, you’ll see why.
Jul 16, 2020 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
1/ Thread giving background on the shocking victory of #Apple and Ireland victory against the @EU_Commission yesterday in the EU General Court @EUCourtPress2/ Recall the facts: Two stateless subs of Apple (Irish-incorp’d, U.S.-managed and controlled). Apple loaded the stateless subs with valuable IP, so all the IP profits end up there.
Feb 14, 2019 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
THREAD 1/ GenCt ANNULS Commission’s decision that Belgian Excess Profits regime was state aid. GC decision has few implications for Apple and other cases but significant impact on EC’s ability to use state aid to fight tax competition. #taxtwitter curia.europa.eu/juris/document…
2/ General Court held that the EC did not carry its burden to show that the Belgian regime was an “aid scheme.” This does NOT mean that individual rulings issued under the regime did not confer illegal aid.
