Nothing is certain in life except for death and taxes, and Apple seems to have placed itself under the limelight yet again this time around. Apparently, The Australian Financial Review has come across a report which did mention that there is an investigation which is being led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, touting that Apple’s iTunes earnings over in Europe are mostly untaxed.
Apparently, the report claims that over 66% of the profit that Apple makes via international movie and music sales outside of the U.S. would end up going through Apple’s Luxembourg-based iTunes Sàrl company, which is not subjected to any kind of tax courtesy of “an intra-group fees agreement signed in 2008.”
Is this true? Perhaps, and when you take into consideration that it was just last year that a company the size of Apple allegedly paid a mere €20 million in taxes, never mind the fact that it was riding on the back of raking in close to €2.05 billion in iTunes sales alone throughout a similar time period. Apple does not seem to be the only company taking this route when it comes to the seemingly lax taxation systems in select European markets, and it would be interesting to see how the various governments respond to such a situation. Brilliant, cunning, or both? You be the judge.
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