GETTING TOUGH

EU Looking Into Apple, Starbucks Taxes

Over whether their tax deals comply with Union rules.

As the topic of corporations paying taxes has heated up over the past few years, the European Union has decided to actually do something about it. The European Commission announced Wednesday it has opened investigations into corporate tax policies benefiting Apple, Starbucks, and Fiat. The EC will be looking into rules in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg to see whether tax decisions affecting those companies in these countries comply with the EU’s state aid rules. A U.S. Senate report last year claimed that Apple was keeping billions of dollars in profits from being taxed by sheltering it in Ireland, while Starbucks was found to have received a sweet tax deal in the Netherlands during a U.K. parliamentary investigation.