Apple CFO Luca Maestri to Lead Challenge Against Irish Tax Ruling in Luxembourg Court This Week

Apple this week is set to challenge the European Commission's order to repay 13 billion euros in Irish back taxes, according to Reuters.

European Commisssion
The report claims Apple is expected to send a six-person delegation led by its CFO Luca Maestri to a two-day court hearing in Luxembourg on Tuesday and Wednesday. Apple will likely argue many of the same points that Apple CEO Tim Cook penned in a public letter about the tax ruling three years ago.

In a nutshell, Apple believes it follows the law and pays all the taxes it owes in every country where it operates, including Ireland. Apple has also said nearly all of its research and development takes place in the United States, so that is where the company should and does pay the majority of its taxes.

An excerpt from Cook's letter:

The Commission's move is unprecedented and it has serious, wide-reaching implications. It is effectively proposing to replace Irish tax laws with a view of what the Commission thinks the law should have been. This would strike a devastating blow to the sovereignty of EU member states over their own tax matters, and to the principle of certainty of law in Europe.

Ireland is also appealing the ruling, but Apple has finished paying back the 13 billion euros in the meantime, with the funds stored in an escrow account. If the order is overturned, the money would be returned to Apple.

In 2016, following a three-year investigation, the European Commission found Apple received illegal state aid from Ireland. Apple allegedly paid between 0.005 percent and one percent in taxes in Ireland between 2003 and 2014, compared to the the country's headline 12.5 percent corporate tax rate at the time.

Popular Stories

Google maps feaure

Google Maps Quietly Added This Long-Overdue Feature for Drivers

Wednesday December 10, 2025 2:52 am PST by
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you. Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature 1

Apple to Make More Foldable iPhones Than Expected [Updated]

Tuesday December 9, 2025 9:59 am PST by
Apple has ordered 22 million OLED panels from Samsung Display for the first foldable iPhone, signaling a significantly larger production target than the display industry had previously anticipated, ET News reports. In the now-seemingly deleted report, ET News claimed that Samsung plans to mass-produce 11 million inward-folding OLED displays for Apple next year, as well as 11 million...
iOS 26

iOS 26.2 Coming Soon With These 8 New Features on Your iPhone

Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon. Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week. iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
iOS 26

15 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 26.2

Friday December 5, 2025 9:40 am PST by
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below. Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
AirPods Pro Firmware Feature

Apple Releases New Firmware for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3

Thursday December 11, 2025 11:28 am PST by
Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3 and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B30, up from 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 firmware is 8B28, up from 8B21. There's no word on what's include in the updated firmware, but the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 are getting expanded support for Live Translation in the European Union in iOS...
iOS 26

Apple Seeds Second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to Developers and Public Beta Testers

Monday December 8, 2025 10:18 am PST by
Apple today seeded the second release candidate version of iOS 26.2 to developers and public beta testers, with the software coming one week after Apple seeded the first RC. The release candidate represents the final version iOS 26.2 that will be provided to the public if no further bugs are found. Registered developers and public beta testers can download the betas from the Settings app on...
iPhone 14 Pro Dynamic Island

iPhone 18 Pro Leak Adds New Evidence for Under-Display Face ID

Monday December 8, 2025 4:54 am PST by
Apple is actively testing under-screen Face ID for next year's iPhone 18 Pro models using a special "spliced micro-transparent glass" window built into the display, claims a Chinese leaker. According to "Smart Pikachu," a Weibo account that has previously shared accurate supply-chain details on Chinese Android hardware, Apple is testing the special glass as a way to let the TrueDepth...
AirTag 2 Mock Feature

Apple AirTag 2: Four New Features Found in iOS 26 Code

Thursday December 11, 2025 10:31 am PST by
The AirTag 2 will include a handful of new features that will improve tracking capabilities, according to a new report from Macworld. The site says that it was able to access an internal build of iOS 26, which includes references to multiple unreleased products. Here's what's supposedly coming: An improved pairing process, though no details were provided. AirTag pairing is already...
ipad blue prime day

iPad 12 Rumored to Get iPhone 17's A19 Chip, Breaking Apple Tradition

Wednesday December 10, 2025 12:22 pm PST by
The next-generation low-cost iPad will use Apple's A19 chip, according to a report from Macworld. Macworld claims to have seen an "internal Apple code document" with information about the 2026 iPad lineup. Prior documentation discovered by MacRumors suggested that the iPad 12 would be equipped with an A18 chip, not an A19 chip. The A19 chip was just released this year in the iPhone 17, and...
studio display purple

Apple Studio Display 2 Code Hints at 120Hz ProMotion, HDR, A19 Chip

Thursday December 11, 2025 4:19 am PST by
Apple's next-generation Studio Display is expected to arrive early next year, and a new report allegedly provides a couple more details on the external monitor's capabilities. According to internal Apple code seen by Macworld, the new external display will feature a variable refresh rate capable of up to 120Hz – aka ProMotion – as well as support for HDR content. The current Studio...

Top Rated Comments

Sathinator1 Avatar
82 months ago
Apple should pay its fair share of tax in any part of the world that it operates. These tax minimization schemes are a disgrace.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Nuno Lopes Avatar
82 months ago
As an European I totally agree with Apple assessment. One of the ways small European countries have to compete and attract mass scale businesses such as the ones of Apple, against big countries like Germany and France is by negotiating better tax conditions.

Considering the small dimensions and population of these countries versus the massive scale of these companies businesses they can at a lower tax, supply financially their needs lawfully.

Of course the German, the French and the soon to leave the British, don’t like this. Their view is anti competitive. They want to have the advantages of being geographically big and large populations as well as tax advantages. They have cooked the European competition laws to their advantage but the issue of sovereignty has kept them from touching local / country tax laws. If they see this through they will be able to do whatever with local tax laws, and cook them to their advantage.

This is as ridiculous as small countries advocating that it’s unfair for them to be geographically small or not as well positioned in the flux of businesses in the map.

Mind you that all the loans given to smaller countries at better rates were for their development in exchange of commercial and production quotas towards the larger countries with plenty of agricultural fields and industrial capacity. So the lunch was not at all free. The all thing culminated with the Greek incident with the German suggestion for them to sell Islands in order to pay their dept.

Cheers.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tabilo Avatar
82 months ago
As a European I disagree with Apple on this. The European idea can only work if there is a fair competition. Countries like Ireland, Luxembourg and partly UK and the Netherlands are using loopholes to attract international cooperations to avoid taxes, which the rest of the EU has to pay for.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
apolloa Avatar
82 months ago
Good luck Apple, you’ve got absolutely no hope of winning but good luck all the same.
Personally I think you should pay your taxes like everyone else and stop milking it of society but that’s just me.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
az431 Avatar
82 months ago
Apple should pay its fair share of tax in any part of the world that it operates. These tax minimization schemes are a disgrace.
So you don’t take any tax deductions that you are entitled to because it would be a “disgrace”?

I thought so.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
lkrupp Avatar
82 months ago
Why bother, Apple. This is a done deal. You think you can talk the EU out of $15B? They’re drooling over the prospect of getting their hands on that cash.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)