BRUSSELS (AP) - Apple has to pay up to $14.5 billion - plus billions more in interest - in back taxes to Ireland after the European Union found Tuesday the U.S. technology giant contributed almost no tax across the bloc's 28 countries for 11 years.
The ruling is a dramatic escalation by the EU executive commission in its battle to have multinationals pay their fair share in the region, where popular outrage over corporate tax dodging has grown after years of financial crises and austerity budgets.
It also risks enflaming tensions with the U.S., which argues the EU is picking on American companies and depriving it of potential tax windfalls of its own.
At the heart of the matter is the EU's claim many multinationals - including Amazon and McDonalds - struck deals with EU countries to pay unusually low tax in exchange for basing their EU operations there.
EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said a three-year investigation found Ireland granted such lavish tax breaks to Apple the multinational's effective corporate tax rate on its European profits dropped from 1 percent in 2003 to a mere 0.005 percent in 2014.
That last tax rate meant for each 1 million euros in profits, Apple paid just 50 euros in taxes, Vestager told a news conference.
"Member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies - this is illegal under EU state aid rules," Vestager said.
For Ireland, a country of barely 4.6 million people, the sum to be recovered would be a huge windfall - equivalent to $3,150 for every man, woman and child.
And yet the government said it would appeal the decision, arguing it had granted no favorable treatment to Apple.
Ireland has for years offered low corporate tax rates to multinationals, a common strategy among Europe's smaller nations, including Luxembourg and Holland.
Because the countries are small, they gain from even small amounts of tax on multinationals' huge revenues. They also benefit from the jobs created locally. Apple has 5,500 workers in Ireland, making it one of the biggest private-sector employers.
The Irish government insisted Apple had paid its full amount of tax and no state aid was provided.
"It is important that we send a strong message that Ireland remains an attractive and stable location of choice for long-term substantive investment," said Irish finance minister, Michael Noonan. "Apple has been in Ireland since the 1980s and employs thousands of people in Cork."
Apple likewise claimed it had followed the law and paid every cent of what it owed.
Both Apple and the Irish government said they would challenge the EU action in the European courts, and predicted it would be vindicated.
Apple shares were down 0.6 percent in New York, a modest drop that reflects expectations Apple can afford the settlement, should it stand. Apple made $10.5 billion in the first three months this year alone.
The EU ruling raises the difficult question of how to fairly tax multinationals - in their home country, where the bulk of their goods are developed, or in the countries where the goods are sold.
Currently, the setup allows Apple to record all its sales across the EU's 28 nations and 500 million consumers in Ireland.