Apple will move its entire international iTunes business to Ireland

International HQ will move from one tax haven to another.

Apple is moving its international iTunes business assets from Luxembourg to Ireland at the start of next month.

From February 5, the non-US side of its business, including the iTunes Store, Apple Music, the App Store, and the iBooks Store, will operate from its European HQ in Cork, according to a note sent out to developers yesterday.

The move isn't coming as a total surprise; Apple first announced its intentions in September, and it transferred an estimated $9 billion (£7.2 billion) of iTunes assets at the same time, as well as moving all developer contracts to Apple Distribution International, one of its two main Irish companies.

In effect, Apple is moving its subsidiaries from one low-tax European haven to another, in what could be construed as a careful slight to top EU politicians. In August, Ireland was ordered by the EU to collect an additional €13bn (£10.8bn) in taxes from Apple. The country was accused of offering the tech giant a sweetheart deal with an effective tax rate as low as 0.005 percent, which the EU insists is anticompetitive for the tax systems of its other member nations and could even amount to illegal state aid.

Both Apple and Ireland have vowed to challenge the ruling, though CEO Tim Cook didn't turn up for a recent meeting with the Irish government to discuss the issue.
Apple employs around 5,500 people in Cork and last year announced it would expand that number by around a thousand. The company is also in the process of building an €850 million (£725 million) data centre in Athenry, which would underpin both iTunes and iCloud—though this project is currently being held up by various legal challenges.