Apple holds Europe to ransom: Tech giant threatens to cut jobs in EU after Brussels orders it to pay back £11BILLION in tax over 'illegal' sweetheart deal with Irish government
- £11bn ($14.5bn) penalty issued is 40 times higher than previous EU record
- Ireland will be asked to claw back billions but will refuse cash and appeal
- Apple paid as little as 0.005% tax a year on its profits outside the US
- In 2011 it made $22bn profits but just $55m was deemed taxable in Ireland
- Tech giant will appeal and say EU figures are 'completely made-up'
- Google and Amazon could be next with EU rulings due in the next year
- US Treasury has warned EU not to pursue American companies over tax
The European Commission's three-year investigation into Apple's sweetheart deal with Ireland has found it amounted to illegal state aid.
In a damning report published today it emerged the tech giant paid as little as 0.005 per cent tax by funnelling its non-US profits through a 'so-called headquarters' in Ireland with no staff or premises.
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'The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple's history in Europe, ignore Ireland's tax laws and up-end the international tax system in the process.
