My first thoughts and attempt at understanding the General Court's Ireland/Apple judgment of yesterday: (thread)

1/ GC confirms that the European Commission (EC) can in principle, tackle tax rulings trough State aid rules BUT it has to satisfy the burden of proof in that respect, and show convincingly that an advantage has been granted

2/ a (very) low level of taxation of a company does not in itself show the existence of an advantage under State aid rules; the analysis has to be done comparing the level of taxation of the company with the 'normal' applicable tax rules; an advantage cannot be presumed

3/ tax rules in Ireland provide for the taxation of foreign subsidiaries only to the extent that some activities are imputable to them; OECD rules provides for different methodologies in that regard, but one cannot automatically be preferred over the other;

4/ the value of Apple IP rights had been attributed by the EC to Apple's subsidiaries in Ireland; GC finds that there was no sufficient evidence showing that those IP activities were actually imputable to those Irish subsidiaries, EVEN IF it is not clear where else they could be

5/ In sum, even if it may be that Apple's IP rights are not taxed anywhere, it is not sufficient to consider that they should have been taxed in Ireland

6/ CCL: Tax avoidance and (very) low levels of taxation of multinational companies is a problem that needs to be addressed at the political level (EU and international); State aid rules can be used but might not always be the best tool to address these issues.

disclaimer: this thread only represents my own personal views or understanding of the case; the GC Judgment may still be appealed before the Court