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The Apple ruling ‘represents a defiant rejection of US attempts to defend tax-avoiding corporations’.
The Apple ruling ‘represents a defiant rejection of US attempts to defend tax-avoiding corporations’. Photograph: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images
The Apple ruling ‘represents a defiant rejection of US attempts to defend tax-avoiding corporations’. Photograph: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images

Apple must now pay its taxes. This is a vindication of protest

This article is more than 7 years old
Owen Jones
Victories for protesters over tax avoidance and on TTIP show how grassroots campaigns can overturn injustice and hold the powerful to account

Tax avoidance is one of the great injustices of our time. Services are cut, justified by the lack of public money available, while mega-rich corporations and individuals find means to avoid paying tax. Companies that depend on state largesse – from infrastructure to an education system that trains their employees, to in-work benefits – refuse to contribute in return. Small businesses that don’t have the means to exploit loopholes are destroyed by big businesses that do. At the bottom of the pecking order, benefit fraudsters are pursued for relatively paltry sums of money, while at the top, accountancy firms help design tax laws and then instruct their clients how to get around them. Tax avoidance epitomises an unjust social order: one in which different rules apply, depending on your wealth and power; and where societies are rigged in favour of shamelessly greedy elites.

That’s why today’s ruling by the European commission – to force Apple to pay up to €13bn (£11bn) in unpaid taxes – is so significant. Apple is one of the world’s biggest companies. Its arrangement with Ireland allowed it to pay little tax on income earned across the continent: this, the commission says, violates rules on state aid. It also represents a defiant rejection of US attempts to defend tax-avoiding corporations.

Here is a vindication of protest. Tax justice is only on the agenda because movements forced it there. It was an issue that once only excited those on the fringes of political debate. Years of campaigning changed that. Those in a position of authority are responding to pressure from below. And here is an instructive lesson. Protesting and campaigning can often feel like a lonely, hard and unrewarding slog. Social change is often a story of defeat followed by setback, followed by defeat followed by setback – and then success.

Another striking example: the Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP), negotiated between the EU and the US, which would hand corporations the power to sue elected governments in secret courts to block policies that might hurt their profits. Years of campaigning and protesting against it across Europe: and it’s paid off. On Monday, Germany’s vice-chancellor declared that TTIP had “de facto failed”. Today, France’s trade minister called for TTIP talks to be called off. People power won.

We are often told about the futility of protesting and campaigning. But these victories tell us otherwise. They should embolden us to confront other injustices, too. By having a bit of determination and resilience, such injustices can be overcome – and that is a lesson the powerful should fear.

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