Why corporates need a foreign policy nowadays

London

THE Irish Parliament will vote on Wednesday as to whether to support the government's decision to appeal against last week's landmark EU decision that Apple owes a tax bill of some 13 billion euros (S$19.7 billion). The ruling, which has been dismissed as "political crap" by Apple CEO Tim Cook, has put the most valuable company by market capitalisation at loggerheads with the world's largest political and economic union.

The EU's decision has also angered the US government which has accused Brussels of trying to make a play for tax revenue that, in Washington's view, should rightfully flow to the US Treasury given that Apple is US-headquartered. At issue therefore is a complex international legal and political question of whether, as an EU member, Ireland should be able to operate a low tax regime that over decades has attracted a large array of multinationals, but which Brussels now asserts amounts to illegal state aid.