The world’s largest company by market cap, iPhone maker Apple expects to repatriate billions of dollars of global profits to the United States next year, the company’s chief executive Tim Cook said in a radio interview on Thursday.
He did not specify exactly how much would be returned. Just a day earlier the European Commission had imposed a record $14.5 billion fine on the company for misusing Ireland’s liberal taxation laws and paying minimal tax to the EU for sales in the continent.
Apple was found to be holding over $181 billion in accumulated profits offshore, more than any US company, in a study published last year by two left-leaning non-profit groups, a policy critics say is designed to avoid paying U.S taxes.
Asked about the level of tax paid by Apple on profits in 2014, Cook told Irish broadcaster RTE that $800 million had been paid and that billions of dollars more had been provisioned and would likely be returned to the United States next year.
“We paid 400 (million dollars) to Ireland, we paid 400 to the US and we provisioned several billion dollars for the US for payment as soon as we repatriate it and right now I forecast that repatriation to occur next year,” Cook said in comments broadcast by RTE.
{{/usCountry}}“We paid 400 (million dollars) to Ireland, we paid 400 to the US and we provisioned several billion dollars for the US for payment as soon as we repatriate it and right now I forecast that repatriation to occur next year,” Cook said in comments broadcast by RTE.
{{/usCountry}}Read: EU orders Apple to pay record 13 bn euros over Irish tax deal
Read: EU hits Apple with $14.5 billion tax bill. But what is this tax?