Apple’s Irish subsidiary doubles pretax profits to €64bn

The main Irish subsidiary of Apple, Apple Operations International, last year doubled its pretax profits to $67.74 billion (€64 billion).

The business recorded the 100 per cent increase in pretax profit from $33.8 billion to $67.74 billion as revenues rose by 42 per cent, from $148.16 billion to $211.05 billion, according to its latest accounts.

Apple Operations International (AOI) is registered at the company’s Holyhill campus in Cork and acts as a holding company for a number of other Apple subsidiaries. It manufactures and develops everything from the company’s iPhone and iPad products to Mac computers.

Taxes

The AOI accounts refer to the Apple and Irish Government's successful appeals against the European Commission decision six years ago that the iPhone maker owed Revenue €13.1 billion in back taxes, plus interest of €1.2 billion.

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In July 2020 Europe’s second highest court ruled that the Government didn’t give Apple any State aid and the accounts note that the European Commission is appealing that decision to the European Court of Justice.

A note attached to the accounts said that Apple may request approval from the Irish Minister for Finance “to reduce the recovery amount for certain taxes paid to other countries”.

The note states that as of September 25th last, the adjusted recovery amount was €12.7 billion, excluding interest. This amount plus interest is an escrow account pending the conclusion of all legal proceedings.

The company last year paid dividends of $25.3 billion to Apple parent and this was down on the $81.5 billion dividend paid in 2020. The accounts said that the dividends were fully subject to US tax.

AOI incurred a corporation tax charge of $11.575 billion last year which excludes US-based taxes.

The accounts don’t disclose corporate tax paid in Ireland but said that Ireland’s 12.5 per cent corporate tax charge would have resulted in corporation taxes of $8.46 billion.

AOI last year recorded post tax profits of $56.16 billion.

Numbers employed at AOI and other subsidiaries last year totalled 52,563 – a 1,308 increase on the 51,255 employed in September 2020. Some 6,000 of those employees are based in Ireland.

Funds

Staff costs totalled $5.8 billion and that included share-based compensation of $1.16 billion.

AOI’s expenses last year totalled $9.7 billion. The group’s research and development costs were $12.49 billion compared to $15.5 billion in 2020.

The group’s cash funds almost doubled during the year, rising from €8.6 billion to €16.8 billion.

This is only the fourth time in the last number of years that AOI has filed accounts with the Irish Companies Registration Office.

Under previous rules AOI wasn’t required to file accounts. An EU directive in 2018 changed the requirements and resulted in AOI filing accounts for that year and 2021.