Hours after rolling out their brand new 2025 iPhone Watch and Buds, Apple has been hit with a A$21-billion-dollar tax bill after the US Company lost an appeal in Europe.

The Company that uses Ireland as a tax haven to minimise tax including billions in revenue generated in Australia, are going to have to pay €13 billion US$14.4 billion or A$21M in back taxes after the EU’s Court of Justice in Luxembourg backed a landmark 2016 decision that Ireland broke state-aid law by giving the iPhone maker an unfair advantage.

The Company that has A$241 Billion in cash reserves at the last count is also facing having to pay more tax than in the past on future earnings.

The decision is a boost for the European Union following a crackdown on special deals doled out by nations to big companies.

The European Court of Justice decision overrules a lower court win for Apple.

The appeal Court claimed that the lower court decision should be overturned, because judges incorrectly decided that the commission’s regulators had made mistakes in their assessment.

The ruling is also a boost for EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, whose mandate in Brussels is about to end after two terms claims Bloomberg.

Apple CEO Tim Cook right with President Biden

Apple CEO Tim Cook who was front and centre of the Companies new product offering earlier in the day, blasted the EU move as “total political crap.”

The U.S. Treasury weighed in too, saying the EU was making itself a “supra-national tax authority” that could threaten global tax reform efforts.

Then President Donald Trump said Vestager “hates the United States” because “she’s suing all our companies.”

“We are disappointed with today’s decision as previously the general court reviewed the facts and categorically annulled this case,” an Apple spokesperson said.

Apple AirPod Hearing Test update.

Bloomberg claimed that In 2016, Vestager sparked outrage across the Atlantic when she homed in on Apple’s tax arrangements.

She claimed that Ireland granted illegal benefits to the Cupertino, California-based company that enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses in the country, over many years.

She ordered Ireland to claw back the A$21 billion sum, which amounts to about two quarters of Mac sales globally.

The money has been sitting in an escrow account pending a final ruling.