Ireland to appeal EU Apple ruling this week News
Ireland to appeal EU Apple ruling this week

[JURIST] The Irish government announced Tuesday that it would submit its appeal within the week against the European Commission’s [official website] demand that Apple pay back-taxes. In a statement on Tuesday, Finance Minister Michael Noonan [official profile] said [Reuters report] that the Irish government “fundamentally disagrees with the European Commission’s analysis and the decision left no choice but to take an appeal to the European Courts and this will be submitted tomorrow.” Ireland and Apple both deny wrongdoing.

In September, Irish lawmakers voted [JURIST report] to appeal the ruling of the European Commission that would entitle the country to almost $15 billion of unpaid taxes from Apple. Noonan said that talks between the Fine Gael party and the Independent Alliance determined that allowing the ruling to stand could hurt Ireland’s ability to attract foreign investments in the future. Enda Kenny, Prime Minister of the Republic, gave an interview detailing how he is confident that the appeal will succeed because tax issues are a matter for each sovereign to decide, not the European Commission. Apple pays from almost 0-1 percent taxes on its profits in Ireland and the European Commission is claiming that the tech giant illegally funded profits through its Ireland headquarters to avoid higher tax payments.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.