Tim Cook visits Brussels to discuss tax breaks to Apple – RPP News

It is not confirmed whether the meeting discussed the investigation opened by Brussels to the US technology giant. <- | Source: EFE -> | Source: EFE

The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, met yesterday at the headquarters of the European Commission (EC) to the holder of Competition, Margrethe Vestager, to decide on the legality of the tax advantages which the Irish authorities granted to the company.

“The Vestager Commissioner met today (yesterday) with the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, for a private meeting, “he told Efe EU sources, without giving further details.

They refused to clarify whether the meeting they discussed the investigation opened by Brussels to the US technology giant.

The predecessor of Vestager in office, the former vice president of the EC Joaquin Almunia, opened in June 2014 an investigation into tax benefits applied to Apple in Ireland, Starbucks in Holland and Fiat Finance & amp; Trade in Luxembourg.

The EC feared that in these specific cases, national tax authorities had waived part of the revenue of these multinationals or their benefits through a fiscal pact that would favor them to the detriment of other enterprises and free competition.

Brussels and decided in October 2015 on the first two cases the asking Luxembourg and the Netherlands recovered, respectively, 20 and 30 million euros for giving selective tax breaks and Fiat Starbucks.

Asked at a press conference on the case of Apple in Ireland last January 11, Vestager said that “investigations take time.”

“Sometimes you think a case is aimed and that can provide an answer within a predictable time, and then something happens. You may have received more information and to evaluate it. You may have to ask more questions, “he said.

Anyway, he said that “we will announce the decision when we are ready and we can not say anything about when it will be,” he said.

Cook also met in Strasbourg (France) with the president of the European Parliament, Martin . Schulz, on the margins of the plenary session of the European Parliament

EFE

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