21/01/20

INTERNATIONAL TAX: Tim Cook, Apple CEO Calls for Global Corporate Tax Change.

As published on itproportal.com, Tuesday January 21, 2020.

Apple’s Tim Cook knows that the current way to tax multinational companies isn’t fair. He’s also wary of the possibility that changes to the tax law could go into the opposite extreme.

That's at least what he said at a recent speech in Ireland, something of a European tax haven and a country where many global companies have their headquarters.

According to Reuters, Cook believes that “everyone knows” the global corporate tax system needs overhauling.

“I think logically everybody knows it needs to be rehauled, I would certainly be the last person to say that the current system or the past system was the perfect system. I’m hopeful and optimistic that they (the OECD) will find something,” Cook said.

“It’s very complex to know how to tax a multinational... We desperately want it to be fair,” he added.

Apple is one of many global tech companies with European headquarters in Ireland. Facebook, PayPal, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, Twitter and many others are located in Dublin, as well.

Apple has 6,000 employees Cork and is currently battling the EU, together with the Irish government, in court, over $14.4 billion in potential taxes to be paid.

Cook also said that Europe, and the world, should not stop with GDPR, and should work further on privacy and data regulation.

“I think more regulation is needed in this area, it is probably strange for a business person to be talking about regulation but it has become apparent that companies will not self-police in this area,” he said.

“We were one of the first to endorse GDPR, we think it is overall extremely good, not only for Europe. We think it’s necessary but not sufficient. You have to go further and that further is required to get privacy back to where it should be.”