€13 billion. Wow! Nothing to do with transfer pricing. All do with the relationship between the parent companies and their Irish branches. The EC position is that as the ‘stateless’ companies have no substance ALL of the profit is allocated to the Irish branches. We really are at the races now.
The press release is here.
The Apple state-aid journey rumbles on. The scene was enlivened somewhat last week with the publication of a white paper by the US Treasury criticising the approach of the European Commission. The paper dishes out a good kicking and provides a useful template for a company or country considering an appeal to an adverse ruling.
We know most of the key points the US are making. They are concerned that the US taxpayer could end up footing the bill (as Robert Stack repeats here) but if the tax payments are legitimately due elsewhere then this doesn’t amount to much. But the risks, functions and assets that generated Apple’s profits were in the US so, under the current system, the tax on those customers is due in the US. Of course, a company may decide to move those assets but that is an issue that the country of departure has oversight of. For the period under investigation in the Apple case it is clear that the main drivers of its profitability were controlled and located in the US.
The US Treasury paper looks at the substance of the EC position – that some transfer pricing arrangements put in place (for mainly US MNCs) were “wrong”. For the EC is this is a competence they do not have nor one that they should be seeking. If you are intent on saying that something is “wrong” you must be able to state what is “right” – but in transfer pricing there are ranges not precise outcomes.
Vox EU carry an interview with Patrick here. You should be able to listen to it by clicking the bar below.
With the 2016 Summer Olympics Games upon us, much of the world’s media has descended on Rio to cover more than 300 events, across 28 sports, for the next three weeks. Early reports have already complimented the facilities in place. This should not come as a surprise. An estimated $14 billion has been spent to date and includes new stadia, sports facilities, transport and communications infrastructure, accommodation, security, etc. The scale of investment is on a par with London 2012 but comes on the back of a similar outlay during the 2014 World Cup. That’s close to $30 billion dollars in 24 months.
While the Games will probably be a sporting success, it’s hard to see how this investment can be justified. A growing list of cities, are now home to unused, dilapidated or demolished Olympic venues. Brazil is likely to encounter similar problems in the years ahead despite the promise of “legacy” effects. Even London recently reported a drop in sports participation four years on from the most recent Summer Games.
Brazil of course will be no stranger to this. Estádio Nacional in Brasília, the second most expensive stadium on the planet, was rebuilt for the 2014 World Cup. The 70,000 seat arena is now primarily used as a bus terminal.
Over the past 40 years, only the Los Angles Summer Games in 1984 generated a net surplus. This was a consequence of the weakened bargaining position of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) when faced with just one finalised bid to host the Games that summer. Riots (1968), terrorism (1972), public debt (1976) and boycott (1980) had all marred the Olympics in the decade beforehand. Los Angeles negotiated a deal with the IOC that maximised the economic benefits to the city.
Since 1984 other cities have jumped on the bandwagon, in an attempt to regenerate urban areas and turn a net profit. While Barcelona and London have been notable example of ‘success’, they failed to generate any financial surplus. This should not be a surprise.
Sporting events like these should not be viewed as investments. They are primarily consumption products. In the past the Games have brought other benefits; mainly a sense of national pride and increased levels of life satisfaction and happiness. If one monetises these, research suggests the Games are worth the cost. The richer the country, the greater the gain. Citizens from wealthier countries need a much bigger increase in income, to those from poorer countries, in order to experience the same jump in happiness.
And herein lies the problem for Brazil. The country is in the unique position of probably being the first developing democracy to stage the Summer Games (the extent of Mexican democracy in 1968 is debatable). This has brought with it problems. The riots at the World Cup were a manifestation of this. The extent to which the Games will make the population ‘happier’ is questionable. With political, economic, health, environmental and housing crises all present, these Games may not be a repeat of the past.
Rio is on the brink of its biggest ever party. A $14 billion hangover is waiting. The city needs to make the most of the next three weeks. While they party, the real winners are probably the taxpayers in Illinois and Spain. Two of the failed bidders for the 2016 Games.
The Irish banks, AIB and Bank of Ireland, show up poorly on the stress test of 51 European banks (33 in the Eurozone) released Friday night. The methodology is explained on the EBA website. Briefly, there has not been a review of each bank by a team of EBA inspectors as is implied by some of the media coverage – RTE’s bulletin referred to an ‘examination’. It is a mechanical exercise based on the ‘static’ 2015 balance sheet, as published, with no adjustment for the plausibility of provisions but also with no credit for retained earnings post 2015. The ‘stress’ is essentially a GDP downturn from 2016 through 2018 resulting in a depletion of capital adequacy as against the end-2015 balance sheet number.
The scale of the depletion reflects the extent of the assumed downturn. The essential reason for the sharper loss of capital adequacy for the Irish banks is that the downturn assumed for Ireland is greater. Against a baseline, the cumulative adverse GDP shock for the main Eurozone countries included is as follows:
Belgium -7.6
Germany -6.6
Ireland -10.4
Spain -6.7
France -5.6
Italy -5.9
Lux -8.2
Neth -8.4
Austria -7.6
Finland -8.3
The adverse shock assumed for Ireland is the largest and 3.2% above the average for the others shown. There are some other factors but the EBA release makes it clear that these numbers are the main driver of the projected capital depletion. The basis for the large Irish shock is a calibration against the experience over 2008 to 2011 when the downturn in Ireland was more severe than elsewhere.
The EBA may have sacrificed plausibility to uniformity of treatment – the exercise is in any event an input into a further phase called SREP, the supervisory review and evaluation process, rather than a definitive assessment of bank capital adequacy. The Irish banks, and numerous others, may of course need to generate or raise more capital but the relative worsening in their position flows from the assumptions employed and not from any ‘news’ uncovered by the EBA sleuths.