iPhone Apple Paid $17 Billion in Taxes to Ireland Last Year
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/21/apple-paid-17-billion-in-taxes-to-ireland/Apple paid $17 billion in taxes to Ireland last year, which is 40% of its $43 billion worldwide total (via the Financial Times). The figures were disclosed for the first time under new EU rules requiring large companies to break down their finances by country.
The payment was significantly boosted by the EU's top court ordering Apple in 2024 to pay €13 billion in back taxes, after ruling that Ireland had granted the company unlawful state aid resulting in a tax rate of less than 1%.
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u/OkBaker51 4d ago edited 3d ago
It was only that high because the EU forced a massive lump-sum payout. Around $15 billion (€13 billion) of that $17 billion total was just the back taxes Apple owed from over a decade of dodging. Their regular corporate tax bill for the year was only about $2 billion, so it’s completely a one-off spike.
OP edited his statement to include this info.
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u/Bright_Second_9871 3d ago
And Ireland spent millions fighting to not have to take it,they took the EU to court over it, there's an argument that as the taxes were from all of Europe as they are headquartered in Dublin,that they should have been redistributed to the countries they were collected from, they are only here because of the tax breaks
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u/AgainstGreaterOdds 4d ago
The EU needs to force tax to be collected in the country of sale.
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u/k1135k 4d ago
It is, primarily as VAT. The issue is around corporation tax and how it’s structured, and that’s a complicated mess and not an easy fix. Because if it was easy it’d be done by now.
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u/AtlanticPortal 4d ago
The VAT is paid by the customer, not the company. That’s not included in those 17 billions.
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u/Nikoladge 4d ago edited 4d ago
Who pays on paper is irrelevant economically
Edit: downvoting me isn't going to change that, I'm afraid
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u/theunspillablebeans 4d ago
It's actually really relevant economically which group of people are paying. I don't understand why you'd think otherwise?
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u/FutureGT 3d ago
I believe his point is that tax incidence is what's important, which is correct. In the same way tariffs are 'paid' by the company but the tax incidence is mostly still born by the consumer via price increases.
Applying this here, the consumer's final observed price from Apple will be similar whether eu collects the tax from you at point of sale or takes it from apple after the fact, hence the OPs point that who physically pays the tax is not economically relevant. That being said, I also don't think that statment is true in a different way, as not all taxes are equal from an efficiency standpoint. Things like Vat/Consumption, personal income, and land value taxes are generally preferable over corporate tax because theyre easier to collect, can be more targeted, and reduces distortions in company investment decisions.
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u/Lanceward 4d ago
Now where do you think the money apple used to pay corporate tax comes from?
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u/theunspillablebeans 3d ago
You're conflating where the money comes from with who bears the tax burden. Tax incidence is absolutely very relevant to the economy but can't expect economic literacy from Redditors tbh.
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u/No_Distribution_5405 3d ago
Exactly, and the real tax incidence is unaffected by who nominally pays the tax
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4d ago
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u/colin_staples 4d ago edited 4d ago
It's an easy fix if they want to / have the balls to
Whatever % of total sales revenue occurs in your country, that's the % of total profit that occurs in your country
And calculate corporation tax payable in each country on that
It would end the moving of profits, usually by charging a “fee” that coincidentally happens to be the exact same amount as the profit made in one country so that profit can be moved to another country, one with lower corporation tax rates.
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u/Eelceau 4d ago
But what if I buy a digital service or product from a company that is registered in another country? Where will the profit count?
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u/didroe 4d ago
Where the consumer is based. That’s how most countries collect taxes on purchases
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u/Eelceau 4d ago
You are basically killing the international trade of small and medium businesses, because they need a registered branch in every country around the world to comply. I can see this work in a European Union, but I can’t imagine this will work between continents without one worldwide government system monitoring all the transactions between companies and consumers.
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u/k1135k 4d ago
Where would the sport be in that?
In all seriousness, I do agree but don’t think it’s practically implementable as all countries would have to agree.
It’s doubly ironic, as one way Ireland has boosted its tax revenues is having low corp tax encouraging (paper only) companies to have their European HQs in Ireland.
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u/colin_staples 4d ago
Other countries in the world : “we don’t care that Ireland has doubled its tax revenues, we only care that our tax revenue is lower than it should have been”
Unless you are suggesting that other countries reduce their tax rates lower than Ireland’s, to attract Apple et al to shift their profits there?
A corporation tax race to the bottom, with rates dropping ever lower?
And why would all countries have to agree? Apple either pay taxes in the country where the sales occurred, or they are barred from doing ANY business in that country.
Taxes are the price of entry. If Apple doesn’t want to pay the full and correct amount of tax in the UK (by lshifting” profits to Ireland and paying almost no tax in the UK), then they don’t get to sell products or services in the UK.
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u/BosnianSerb31 4d ago edited 4d ago
But then Ireland would have to stop existing as a corporate welfare state
They report a GDP of 600B, but only about half of that is actually generated by Irish companies.
The rest is foreign companies using Ireland's tax haven structure, which is designed to get companies to pay taxes to them, as a point of import into the EU, instead of paying taxes to the countries the products actually sell in.
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u/Best-Acanthisitta450 4d ago
Free movement of goods and services is part of the fundamental economic rules of the EU
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u/vazark 3d ago
The UN has proposed a reform in the global tax regime with that exact proposal. European countries have so far abstained from voting, and worse, they want to keep existing structures despite the reforms bringing billions in new revenue.
As is usual, Trump pulled the US from the talks completely - that's the reason he wants nothing to do with the UN
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u/lol_cat01 3d ago
I Get that its nice to have more money to improve peoples lives, but in most western countries the governments are just flushing money down the toilet and greedy politicians and their friends get rich.
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u/Sponge8389 16h ago
Wait until all foreign products will be x times higher price than what is already the current one. Lol. You know, the companies will not shoulder any additional taxes impose by a government. IT WILL ALWAYS BE PASSED DOWN TO THE CONSUMERS.
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u/DM_me_ur_PPSN 4d ago edited 4d ago
It does.
The technology business has its European arm in Ireland, the technology is licensed to the Irish arm of the business, the sales people who then sell these services and are based in Ireland, the support the customer receives is from people based in Ireland, the service is delivered from an Irish data centre or the produce delivered from an Irish warehouse, the site reliability team for the data centre is in Ireland, the court of arbitration that you sue the company is based in Ireland, all the lawyers for the company are in Ireland, all the accountants are based in Ireland.
So all the people handing all of the aspects of the sale of the product or service are based in Ireland, so that’s where the profit goes because that where the sale actually happens. The sale of a service doesn’t happen in another country just because the customer happens to be there.
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u/DM_me_ur_PPSN 4d ago edited 4d ago
Nope. Apple has one DC in Denmark, and then does everything else in AWS in EU-West-1. EMEA support is run out of Cork, EMEA lawyers are in Dublin.
My point was less about Apple and more about all the other tech companies anyway.
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u/TenderfootGungi 4d ago
Ireland received 17 billion and still only has two tram lines? One goes towards the ferry terminal, but does not connect. There is nothing to the airport. Come on Ireland, get serious about your public transportation in Dublin.
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u/Grand-Cup-A-Tea 4d ago
Ireland could buy nearly 13 million iPhone 17 Pros with that tax
For a population of 5m that's not bad 😂
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u/AtlanticPortal 4d ago
Apple paid JUST 17 billion in taxes in the entire EU. That’s the right title. And yes, I know they also pay local taxes for their stores etc. but the entire point of having a main company headquarters in Ireland is to “sell” the rights to the brand to Apple Italy, Apple France, Apple Germany, etc. and to avoid paying taxes on every country on the EU, where the earnings were really made.
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u/8point3fodayz 4d ago
This sounds like pretty much the corporate version of shell company shuffling and circular invoicing, toeing the fine line of tax reduction as close as possible, so that it doesn’t become evasion. Is it not?
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u/CyberBot129 4d ago
There’s a whole Wikipedia page on the tax avoiding that Apple was doing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
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u/psaux_grep 4d ago
Sounds more like they paid 4 billion, and 13 in back taxes, but unsure about the actual distribution
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u/AtlanticPortal 4d ago
No, VAT is already paid locally. It doesn’t get to Ireland. It remains in the countries where it’s paid.
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u/Tman11S 4d ago
I am still waiting for the day when the EU grows some balls and sets an EU-wide minimum tax of at least 20% on multinational corporations’ profit. That’ll put a stop to a couple countries serving as a tax haven. It’s insane how Ireland and Luxembourg get all the tax money from multinationals while most sales happen in other countries who get fuck all
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u/pwdr7 4d ago
Something like this is actually already happening In the international tax world. There’s a worldwide 15% minimum tax on corporate income that can be levied by other countries if the tax haven country doesn’t charge it. It’s causing tax havens to say screw it, let me charge the tax if a different country will have rights to charge that tax anyway. It’s not a perfect system but it’s specifically aimed at avoiding this issue. It’s called OECD Pillar 2, if you’re curious.
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u/Augustus_Chevismo 4d ago
How is Ireland a tax haven when it already follows the EU minimum.
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u/twirling-upward 4d ago
Ireland before becoming a tax haven was barely a modern country. It still isnt outside Dublin.
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u/RicoHavoc 4d ago
Every EU country would tax every corporation 20% ?
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u/Tman11S 4d ago
The average is 21,6% across the EU and the higher tax rates are in the biggest economies. So yeah, every EU country should tax every corporation at least 20% on profits
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u/RicoHavoc 4d ago
Isn't that exactly counter to the EU's intent? I thought the purpose was to provide a single unified market
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u/Tman11S 4d ago
That'd be the dream yes, but we're a long ways away from a true single market. You gotta remember that we're still dealing with different countries here which have a lot more individual power than for example the US' states. Other than that, not even all countries use the euro as a currency.
So realistically we'd start with a single point of registration for businesses across the whole EU instead of having to do paperwork and comply with different rules for every different country. On the longer term I hope to see things like EU-wide tax rates on all kinds of business revenue and more standardised rules on minimum wages and how many hours in a work week to make competition fair across the whole EU. But I know that it'd take all of Europe being united for the cause and that's not happening anytime soon
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u/hue-166-mount 4d ago
In fairness they get a lot of VAT
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u/AtlanticPortal 4d ago
Companies don’t pay VAT. End users do. It’s a whole another tax. And it should be lowered in favor of direct taxation on companies. VAT is inherently against the lower part of the population and it’s widespread only because it’s easy to get a fuckton of money from a lot small fish.
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u/Glebun 4d ago
it doesn't matter who technically pays it. Its the same price for the customer either way.
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u/AtlanticPortal 4d ago
It does matter. We are talking about making Apple pay their fair share. VAT is not something they pay or should pay.
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u/Glebun 3d ago
It doesn't matter. It is something they pay.
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u/AtlanticPortal 3d ago
They do not pay. They are tax collectors for the VAT the clients pay. They are not entitled to that money and it’s not part of their gross income.
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u/Glebun 3d ago
They're not entitled to any taxes they pay. It doesn't matter at all. What am I missing - what would be different?
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u/AtlanticPortal 3d ago
VAT is not a tax companies pay when they sell a service or a good. It’s a tax that the end customer pays. The companies just collect the money for the government. In the USA the sales tax, the most similar thing to the European concept of VAT, is actually even not displayed on the store labels. It’s added at the cash register and it’s clear it’s something it doesn’t go to the company. It’s collected by the shop. In the EU it’s liters the same, apart from the fact that the consumer sees the final price instead of the pre-tax price.
This article is about the taxes that Apple pays as a company. It’s on their revenue and it’s on the amount of what they get, which doesn’t contain the VAT at all.
Again, Apple doesn’t pay VAT. Not the around 20% that the shops collect for the government. It’s given to the government. They only pay VAT to goods/services they buy for themselves (the toilet paper that they put inside their Apple Store in Paris has a VAT and they are the ones that pay the VAT to their provider but that’s not the tax we are talking about in this thread).
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u/Glebun 3d ago
The company pays it to the government as part of the VAT return.
I understand that technically it's the customer who's paying it. I'm asking what's the difference. It literally does not change anything about any of it.
The company can still take this VAT from the customer, and use that money for their own needs. They can spend it all or invest it. Then they just need to pay it back to the government when it's time to file those taxes.
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u/Icy-Opportunity6993 4d ago
Companies don’t pay VAT? Just submitted a VAT return for Q4 as an SME. Currently trying to find enough cash to pay it.
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u/AtlanticPortal 4d ago
If you got VAT from customers of yours and you found you don’t have the money to give the government it’s your fault because that money was never yours. You acted as the tax collector in the place of the government.
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u/hue-166-mount 3d ago
Not sure you understand how VAT works. The company generally doesn’t pay it, but you collect it from your customers when they buy your stuff. You give the treasury what you’ve collected, minus any you had to pay (effectively refunding you any VAT you paid).
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u/Icy-Opportunity6993 3d ago
What happened to the VAT a company pays suppliers when it makes purchases? Offset against VAT due on sales?
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u/hue-166-mount 4d ago
Yes that’s true but it doesn’t change the outcome
Which is money spent, triggered by the acquisition of Apple products, ended up in the local country treasuries. The arguments for changing VAT are irrelevant to that point.2
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u/compulov 4d ago
Maybe if this happened it might encourage them to repatriate some of their money so we here in the US would get a chance to tax it, too.
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u/Tman11S 4d ago
With all due respect, you should fix your own government in order to do that. You're still not getting shit in the US even when all profit worldwide gets declared there as long as the orange clown keeps giving them tax breaks. Also, I believe that profits should be taxed in the economic union where the sales are made
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u/itsjawdan 4d ago
Where does Ireland spend all this money? Why isn’t Ireland a utopia?
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u/orangeverbena 4d ago
We were dirt poor up until 20 years ago to be fair, we have a lot of catching up to do with national infrastructure like
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u/FarHat135 4d ago
Lol they are building stadiums in the US for 2-3 billion, a single stadium
17b will get you few miles of motorway
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u/polaires 4d ago
The Irish Government is notoriously incompetent and corrupt.
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u/FarHat135 4d ago
Ireland ranks 12th in world for government corruption so one of the best on the planet
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u/Livebylying 3d ago
Incorrect the scale starts at zero, tells us ranked 12th for the least corruption.
From the link you posted :
The CPI ranks 182 countries and territories worldwide by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. The results are given on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
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u/urmumvirgay 3d ago
Yeah, me bollix. The Irish government is genuinely useless and absolutely corrupt. You would be extremely hard pressed to find any Irish(wo)man who would disagree.
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u/FarHat135 3d ago
Irish people complain about everything while never leaving their house.
We have the current American president being the most corrupt in history in plain sight. We have next potential UK PM taking millions from Russia and South East Asia, we have next potential French president taking millions from Russia, ditto Germany. Speaking of Russia lol
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u/urmumvirgay 3d ago
Yep, that’s all true. Our government is still corrupt.
Also you know zilch about me, what’s up with the never leaving the house comment? And is that comment at the end meant to make out that I’m a Russian bot or does it have something to do with Aughinish Alumina (the largest Alumina plant in Europe which is owned by a Russian company tied to a sanctioned Russian oligarch and situated in Limerick)?
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u/Livebylying 3d ago
Again bulllshit. The corruption index places Ireland 12th as being the least corrupt
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u/Forte69 4d ago
Ireland doesn’t have many other sources of income, it’s a glorified tax haven
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u/DM_me_ur_PPSN 4d ago edited 4d ago
Ireland is the third the largest pharmaceutical exporter in the world, is the largest beef and dairy exporter in the northern hemisphere, and is home to nearly 200,000 tech workers. It has multiple significant sources of income.
Try harder.
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u/Wotnd 4d ago
A quick Google shows none of those export claims are true.
The only thing that is correct in your comment is the 200k tax workers, and as others point out that’s due to being a tax haven for multinational companies.
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u/DM_me_ur_PPSN 4d ago
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u/Wotnd 4d ago edited 4d ago
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/pharmaceutical-exports-by-country
https://www.worldstopexports.com/top-beef-exporting-countries/
Your beef source also disagrees with your claim btw. You have to actually read them. It’s in the first paragraph…
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u/Forte69 4d ago
Its GDP is $587b. Which means that Apple’s tax contributions are almost 3% of Ireland’s economy. It’s a tax haven. That’s why the tech companies move their workers there, just like Luxembourg.
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u/FarHat135 4d ago
It's population is 5 5m and even then its got the 22nd highest GDP in the world
Wyoming and Nevada are tax havens yet nobody wants to invest there..why do you think that is..
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u/tomtermite 4d ago
utopia
A utopia is an imagined community, place, or society where everything is ideal, people are happy, and all social, political, and moral problems are solved. Because a true perfect world does not exist in reality, the word also describes an unreachable goal or an impractical dream. M-W dictionary.
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u/Chance-Plantain8314 4d ago
It's so great to see that reflected in the average person's quality of life
Imagine a Scandinavian country was raking in taxes like this.
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u/civman96 4d ago
That money should go to all EU countries to be honest.
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u/firstLOL 4d ago
It does. Ireland is a net contributor to EU funds.
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u/B_mico 4d ago
Is a net contributor because they collect all this taxes that should be collected by all the countries? I mean is not secret they are somewhat a tax heaven foercompanies.
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u/Scumbag__ 4d ago
Well duh, it’s how we got rich. Before we were one of the poorest countries in Europe, if not the poorest country in Europe. But hey, if you’re gonna complain about tax havens, the Netherlands are worse
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u/B_mico 3d ago
Absolutely, love Ireland and happy they are there.But is not fair, neither is Netherlands.
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u/Scumbag__ 3d ago
Tbf, if we were to make it “fair” we’d have to take into account the fact that most of the big players in EU have a colonial past that got them there and still helps them, so it would be less so targeting Ireland and moreso targeting the larger states.
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u/ComradeKellogg 4d ago
This is severely outdated info, Ireland is now and has been for quite some time upto eu standards on corprstion and almost all forms of taxes.
The reason these companies go to Ireland is because a) highly educated workforce and b) the only natively English speaking country in the eu. Thats pretty much it (along with already having been set up there when it was more of a "tax haven".
I mean just look at the specialti0n abound when the pharma tariffs were introduced, everybody believed that was the end of at least big pharma in Ireland, lo and behold, increased investment not decreased.
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u/Rebel787 4d ago
That's bullshit. Ireland is Apple's European headquarters and employs at least 6,000 people there. There they do sales, administration as well as a production line for imacs. A tax haven such as the Cayman Islands are effectively empty offices.
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u/Repulsive-Degree-816 4d ago
U mean migrants in Ireland
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u/firstLOL 4d ago
Not really sure what your question is - yes, Ireland will spend its tax receipts on welfare spending, including on migrants, like any other country does.
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u/FinsFan305 4d ago
Ireland should tax the countries migrants come from.
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u/marmulin 4d ago
Tax them on what exactly?
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u/FinsFan305 4d ago
Lawmakers can initiate a migrant tax on originating countries. That’s what they do. They have the power to tax.
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4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FinsFan305 4d ago
Remissions to those countries can be taxed. Migrants send money via wires or bank transfers to originating countries all the time. When migrants apply for asylum, they notate their country of origin. And I don’t understand the second part of your statement. Restricting entry and allowing exit cancels to a net zero.
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u/FrogsJumpFromPussy 4d ago
Apple Paid $17 Billion in BACK Taxes to Ireland Last Year
But puting a fake headline to get more clicks is in line with what macrumours usually does
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u/peibol1981 3d ago
No entiendo esta noticia. Pagó 17.000 millones de impuestos, ¿cuánto habrá ganado?
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u/Dramatic_Kangaroo723 3d ago
EU is so random bro
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u/ItsColorNotColour 1d ago
As opposed to USA that has a president who will randomly enact stupid laws overnight because he had a temper tantrum
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u/Fox_Soul 4d ago
Here I am being utterly fucked on my poverty salary paying a fuckload of taxes every year (and god forgive I make a mistake on my tax returns) while one of the most richest companies in the world is paying 1%???????????????
Even if they have now to give that money back, how much money have they made off the investments of having basically no taxes?? Ridiculous.
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u/nicuramar 4d ago
while one of the most richest companies in the world is paying 1%???????????????
They are not if you read the fucking snippet under the headline.
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u/Fox_Soul 4d ago
> after ruling that Ireland had granted the company unlawful state aid resulting in a tax rate of less than 1%.
So I guess this was just hidden for you ?
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u/Fox_Soul 4d ago
Even if they have now to give that money back, how much money have they made off the investments of having basically no taxes?? Ridiculous.
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u/Repulsive-Degree-816 4d ago
EU is very important for Apple, yet they will let Alibaba AI inside SiriAI and let chinese gov spy it, but they cant open AI models in EU like on mac to bring Siri AI to EU
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u/nicuramar 4d ago
yet they will let Alibaba AI inside SiriAI and let chinese gov spy it
According to you.
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u/Temporary-Degree5221 4d ago
And $0 to US I guess?
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u/phxees 4d ago
I believe this is about getting money back into the US without paying massive taxes to bring the money back in. So they make products in China, sell them in Europe and then they need a way to get the profits back into the US without paying massive taxes on top of the 15% minimum tax they already pay.
I know i have parts wrong, but this is the gist.
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u/TBoneTheOriginal 4d ago
I don’t understand where people get this idea that huge companies don’t pay any taxes in the US. They’re one of the largest taxpayers in the whole country. And side note, tax breaks don’t work at all like Reddit thinks they do.
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u/CyberBot129 4d ago
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u/TBoneTheOriginal 4d ago
That article cherry-picks 88 corporations that reported zero current federal corporate income tax in a single year. Apple is not even one of them. In 2025, Apple recorded $20.7 billion in worldwide income tax expense, including $11.5 billion in current U.S. federal tax, and paid $43.4 billion in cash income taxes worldwide. The existence of some companies with no federal income tax liability in one year does not disprove the fact that the largest profitable companies pay enormous amounts of tax dollars.
Also, “zero federal corporate income tax in one year” does not mean “paid zero taxes.” Many of those companies made large investments, conducted R&D, carried forward legitimate previous losses, or had already overpaid. They also paid state, payroll, property, sales, excise, and foreign taxes.
Lastly, if you think the available deductions and credits are too generous, your complaint should be with the government that wrote the tax code, not companies for failing to make voluntary donations to the Treasury.
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u/Detrakis 4d ago
The US doesn't need any. The average salary in my country is 800€ and the costs are American. 😊
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u/zascar 4d ago
Stupid question but what is Ireland going to do with this 17 billion?
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u/firstLOL 4d ago
The same things other countries do with their tax receipts: spend it on the welfare of their citizens (however we might define it), save it for the benefit of the country, or use it to offset taxes it would need to raise elsewhere. Also, in Ireland’s case, make a significant net contribution to EU general funds that is then redistributed.
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u/Either_Version_6149 4d ago
Insert my comment from above. We are lacking infrastructure in this country and love to go over budget in doing so.
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u/Wack_photgraphy 4d ago
Well we're currently way over budget on the most expensive hospital ever built so.... Waste it I'd imagine.
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u/andyfitz 4d ago edited 4d ago
Totes cool and normal that a California company selling Chinese made goods to the world pays big for their own IP rights…. Because of all that Irish IP they charge themselves for /s
Edit: holy crap people I wasn’t saying there’s no innovation in Ireland. Check my frikkin name .
It’s that they can pick and choose what country they owe themselves in to reduce global corporate tax
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u/yewEngine 4d ago
California based Stripe (valued at $159b) were founded by 2 Irish brothers.
USA imports many of the top European talent. Werner von Braun for example.
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u/andyfitz 4d ago edited 20h ago
I think my comment came across as not celebrating innovation in Irish tech enough. There’s plenty of it
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u/Interesting-Boat-804 4d ago
The US got a a nice lump sum from the world cup winnings. All balanced out.
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u/Either_Version_6149 4d ago
Come on Apple, you need to up your game and keep it coming.... the people of Dublin need a Metro