US bid to intervene in Apple Irish tax case rejected

The US government's bid to intervene in Apple's appeal against a European Commission order that the iPhone maker must pay up to €13 billion in Irish back taxes has been shot down by the court overseeing the case.

The EU’s General Court said on Friday that the US failed to show that it had an adequate interest in the case.

"The United States of America has failed to establish the existence of a direct interest in the result of the case," the court said, adding that the US has not produced evidence that the repatriation of profits from overseas to Apple's base in California, which would make it taxable there, "is established".

Last week, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe revealed that the Republic has reached an agreement with Apple over the management of an escrow account into which the back-taxes, plus interest, must be held pending the outcome of separate legal appeals by the Government and Apple against the original EU decision.

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The money from Apple will start to be paid into the account from the first quarter of 2018, more than a year after an original deadline was set by the EU to collect the money.

It first emerged in July that the US government was planning to intervene in Apple's legal appeal to support the technology giant. The previous US administration had been highly critical of the EU's finding that Apple had allegedly received illegal state aid from Ireland by way of a selective tax deal.

Additional reporting - Bloomberg.