Financial Times
By Vanessa Houlder in London and Christian Oliver in Brussels
How ironic that the US Treasury is now worried about tax investigations into Apple, Starbucks and Amazon.
Robert Stack, a deputy assistant secretary, said the US was concerned that “any retroactive tax would be borne by US taxpayers in the form of a credit”, adding that “a purely prospective remedy would alleviate these concerns”.
The Commission’s competition arm is expected to issue decisions shortly on cases involving Amazon and Fiat in Luxembourg, Apple in Ireland and Starbucks in the Netherlands. If it rules that governments gave companies favourable treatment, it has the power to force governments to claw back 10 years of unpaid taxes, potentially hitting companies with bills running into billions of euros.
The US also fears that the Brussels investigations will end up diminishing the role of its bilateral tax treaties with EU member states. It does not want the commission to override member states in deciding companies’ tax bills, as it has no treaty with Brussels that would allow it to challenge its conclusions.
Hey Robert Stack, how about a tax credit for each country’s expenditure to implement FATCA? That would keep you off the backs of the rest of the world for your insane 30% sanction at least for a while. Look who’s crying now. No Treaty with Brussels, too bad………..
@Eric – not safe at all.
@nervousinvestor: that’s what I thought! I am sending these mails to people who work at the European Parliament.
@Eric – there is a letter on the Brock site in which as I recollect Senator Carl Levin urges the sharing of FATCA data with the three letter agencies.
A three letter letter?
But in this case, we need the information to be shared wih EUROPEAN investigative agencies.
@NormanDiamond
Three Letter Agencies … FBI CIA NSA etc
I cannot find the letter but it was written by Carl Levin as I recollect and I am quite sure that it IS somewhere on this web site or linked from here …. and in it he urges the sharing of the FATCA data with the various Government agencies.
Three of those agencies? That makes Levin’s epistle a three three letter letter.
But in this thread, the US is afraid of what Europe might do to subsidiaries of US companies, and in fact the data ought to be turned over to European agencies.
This may be the Levin letter?
http://bsmlegal.com/PDFs/CarlLevin.pdf
Ex.
“….Although FATCA is structured to address offshore tax abuse, offshore account information has significance far beyond the tax context, affecting cases involving money laundering, drug trafficking, terrorist financing, acts of corruption, financial fraud, and many other legal violations and crimes. Given the importance of offshore account disclosures, FATCA guidance and implementing rule should create account FATCA forms that are not designated as tax return information but, like FBARs, may be provided to law enforcement, regulatory, and national security communities upon request..”……..
Thank you Badger. This one seems longer than the one I recollect but includes the necessary information.
This Levin letter should clearly put the FATCA process into the realm of the EU Court Decision to forbid the sharing of data with the US Law Enforcement Agencies as a matter of routine.