Terrence McDonough is a professor of economics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is coeditor of Contemporary Capitalism and Its Crises: Social Structure of Accumulation Theory for the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
The European Court of Justice has ordered Apple to pay €13 billion in back taxes to the Irish state. Apple’s long history of creative accounting is an object lesson in how the world’s biggest firms manage to shrink their tax bills.
Held up as a eurozone poster boy after the 2008 crash, the Irish economy still isn’t delivering for the majority of its people, especially the young. A second global recession in just over a decade will sharpen popular discontent and the desire for a new model.
The EU says Apple owes Ireland $14.5 billion in back taxes. Why don’t Irish elites want the money?