Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/721047
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 31 AUGUST 2016 11 Business Today www.creditinfo.com.mt info@creditinfo.com.mt Tel: 2131 2344 Your Local Partner for Credit Risk Management Solutions Supporting you all the way EU orders Apple to pay €13 billion in back taxes Apple accuses the European Commission of threatening future investment and job creation on the continent as American tech giant is confi dent of overturning the order The European Commission has ruled that Ireland should recover up to €13 billion from Apple in back taxes. After a three-year investigation, it has concluded that the US firm's tax benefits are illegal. Ireland enabled the company to pay substantially less than other businesses, in effect paying a corporate tax rate of no more than 1%, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager announced yesterday. Apple is not the only company that has been targeted for securing favourable tax deals in the European Union. Last year, the commission told the Netherlands to recover as much as €30 million from Starbucks, while Luxembourg was ordered to claw back a similar amount from Italian carmaker Fiat. Ireland and Apple both said they disagreed with the decision and would appeal against it. The EU probe has found that Apple had been conferred with an unfair advantage as a result of tax rulings it received from the Revenue in 1991 and 2007. The Irish government and Apple have always rejected allegations of wrongdoing and both separately intend to appeal the decision. "Member States cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules," Vestager said. Apple said the decision would be harmful for jobs. "The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple's history in Europe, ignore Ireland's tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process," the company said in a statement. "The Commission's case is not about how much Apple pays in taxes, it's about which government collects the money. It will have a profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe. "Apple follows the law and pays all of the taxes we owe wherever we operate. We will appeal and we are confident the decision will be overturned." The Irish government held a similar view. "I disagree profoundly with the Commission," said Ireland's finance minister, Michael Noonan, in a statement. "The decision leaves me with no choice but to seek cabinet approval to appeal. This is necessary to defend the integrity of our tax system; to provide tax certainty to business; and to challenge the encroachment of EU state aid rules into the sovereign member state competence of taxation." The investigation into Apple and similar probes into other US firms have been criticised by US authorities. Last week, the US Treasury Department said the European Commission was in danger of becoming a "supra-national tax authority" overriding the tax codes of its member states. Brussels was using a different set of criteria to judge cases involving US companies, the US Treasury warned, adding that potential penalties were "deeply troubling". The European Commission said Ireland gave Apple illegal tax benefi ts worth up to €13 billion Despite drop in guests, four-star hotels retain largest share of visitors Martina Borg In June, total guests in collective accommodation establishments numbered 152,434, while total nights spent amounted to 873,671, according to NSO statistics. Figures show that collective accommodation categories registered decreases in total nights spent, with the exception of 4-star hotels and the 'other' category, with the largest share of guest nights being reported in 4-star hotels, accounting for 429,343 nights, or 49.1% of the total. The NSO added that the average length of stay in collective accommodation establishments stood at 5.7 nights during the month under review, at par with June 2015. However, the net use of bed-places stood at 72.9%, down by 1.9 percentage points when compared to the corresponding month last year. Statistics show that on a national level, there were 175 active collective accommodation establishments during June, with a net capacity of 17,980 bedrooms and 40,014 bed-places. Total guests during the first six months of 2016 amounted to 741,905, an increase of 1.6% over the same period in 2015 while total nights spent went up by 2.2%, reaching nearly 4.0 million. The net use of bed-places declined by 0.2 percentage points to 58.6%, data reveals. Guests and nights spent in hotels during June 2016 declined by 2.6% and 2.8% respectively