A poll for the Irish Times found that the majority of Irish voters believe that the government is right to join Apple in appealing against the EU ruling that the Cupertino company must pay €13B ($14.5B) in back taxes.
Apple quickly and aggressively denounced the claim, announcing that it would be appealing against the ruling in court, but the Irish government took a little longer to reach its decision to launch its own appeal.
When asked whether the Government was right to appeal the ruling that Apple should pay €13 billion in back tax, 47 per cent said yes, 39 per cent said no and 14 per cent had no opinion.
The decision to appeal the ruling caused a storm of controversy both at home and abroad, but the poll shows a majority of people back the Government’s stance.
The Irish government was caught in a dilemma. While the majority of those in the USA sided with Apple, many in Europe took a different view, seeing the case as another example of a large corporation using its size and global reach to aggressively avoid paying its fair share of tax. The Irish government had to be mindful of that view while at the same time not doing anything to upset a company bringing a lot of jobs and wealth to the country,
The poll shows that, while views are still very much split, the government correctly judged the mood of the majority in the country.
