Tim Cook, Apple Chief, Defends Tax Practices and Says Cash Will Return to U.S...,

        

Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s competition commissioner, said Apple’s sweetheart deals with the Irish government allowed the company to sidestep taxes. Credit Stephanie Lecocq/European Pressphoto Agency

Apple’s chief executive on Thursday stepped up the outrage over Europe’s demands that it pay a record $14.5 billion in unpaid taxes, calling the decision “maddening” and expressing confidence it would be overturned.

Timothy D. Cook, the Apple chief, stridently defended the company’s tax practices in Ireland, countering European officials’ ruling this week that the Irish government had provided illegal incentives, which allowed the technology giant to pay essentially nothing some years. In an interview with the Irish broadcaster RTE, Mr. Cook said the company paid its fair share in Ireland, the United States and elsewhere.

Mr. Cook also noted that Apple planned to send some of its enormous amount of cash overseas back to the United States next year, although he did not specify how much. Those international reserves have been particularly divisive as they remain out of the reach of American tax authorities.

“The finding is wrongheaded,” Mr. Cook told RTE. “It’s not true — there wasn’t a special deal between Ireland and Apple.”

He continued, “When you’re accused of doing something that is so foreign to your values, it brings out outrage in you.”

The Apple case has stirred up tensions, pitting the United States against Europe.

In announcing the tax decision on Tuesday, Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s competition commissioner, said Apple’s sweetheart deals with the Irish government allowed the company to sidestep taxes by moving profits to a “head office” with “no employees, no premises, no real activities.” The company paid just 50 euros, or $56 at current exchange rates, in taxes for every million euros in profit in 2014, she said.

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Timothy Cook, chief of Apple, at a product event in Cupertino, Calif., in 2015. Mr. Cook, in an interview, called the tax ruling “maddening” and politically motivated. Credit Andrew Burton for The New York Times

After Mr. Cook’s criticism, she denied any political motivation, saying the decision was based on longstanding laws that prohibit member states from giving selected companies favorable treatment. The case, she said, would stand up in court.

“I don’t think the courts will hear any kind of political opinions or feeling or what’s in your stomach or whatever,” she said at a briefing in Brussels. “They want the facts of the case, and that, of course, is what we have to produce.”

American lawmakers and officials are firm that the European Commission, the executive arm of the bloc, does not have the right to go after Apple in this way. American officials said such moves by Europe undermined efforts to collect taxes in the United States, which has been eyeing companies’ overseas cash, including Apple’s $215 billion stockpile.

In the past, Apple has dangled the prospect of bringing back its cash if American authorities offered a tax break. Mr. Cook, in the interview on Thursday, did not say whether the so-called repatriation of such funds would hinge on changes to American tax law.

In regard to the European case, Mr. Cook said Apple would set aside funds — based on the calculations of back taxes — in an escrow account should it lose its appeal. Europe has ordered Ireland to collect 13 billion euros, or $14.5 billion, plus interest.

Still, Mr. Cook, like American officials, took issue with Europe’s retroactively issuing penalties. He said that while it was legitimate to discuss whether Apple paid sufficient tax on its global operations, it was unfair to recoup funds on past activities in Ireland.

“The European Commission’s overreach in this regard is unbelievable to us,” he said. “It’s like playing a sports game or winning a championship, and then later finding out the goals are subsequently treated differently.”

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