Apple handed €13bn tax bill over "sweetheart" Irish deal by EU

Brussels is forcing Apple to pay back billions of euros in taxes after the competition watchdog ruled the tech giant broke antitrust laws by agreeing a so-called sweetheart tax deal in Ireland.
Apple has been handed a tax bill of up to €13bn (£11.1bn) by the European competition
commission following a two year investigation led by hardline head of the antitrust watchdog Margarethe Vestager into its arrangements in Ireland, which the EU believes amounted to state aid.
The long-running saga, one among many pitting the European authorities against US tech companies, has drawn the ire of US treasury officials who cautioned the crackdown on companies would create a "chilling effect" on cross border investment in an unprecedented critique last week.
© AFP (FILES) This file photo taken on February 25, 2016 shows a man as he walks up the stairs at the Apple Store in Grand Central Station in New York. The US Supreme Court on March 7, 2016 upheld a… Handing down the fine today, Vestager said: "Member States cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules.
"The Commission's investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years. In fact, this selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of one per cent on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 per cent in 2014."
The EU has ordered Ireland to recover the unpaid taxes from up to a decade before the investigation began, covering from 2003 to 2014.
Apple and Ireland both deny wrongdoing and the tech company is expected to appeal the ruling.
The bill is the latest to be handed out following a landmark case against Starbucks and Fiat last year and which pathed the way for further scrutiny of corporate tax arrangements across Europe.