It kind of is true, perhaps not to the letter, but certainly in principle. As someone not familiar with the nuances of tax legislation as I'd bet a lot of us are, you can chase terminology all day, but ultimately it all boils down to Ireland given Apple discounted access to the European market at a knockdown rate. The specific point at issue, is not the discount though, it's the fact that this discount isn't available to others.
Nope, has nothing to do with market access. Ireland's tax discount was an incentive for Apple to base their IP there and deposit it's after tax earnings, i.e. foreign earnings after paying corporate income taxes to France, Germany, etc, etc.
Apple paid all the taxes it needed for "market access", this is just a question of what they do with the remaining profits after they paid those taxes. And where they base their IP, which obviously isn't going to be France or Germany.
Yes the reasoning being that they “pay those in the USA” or otherwise they would be paying them in Europe. Now whether or not they actually pay them in the US is another matter but, the manner in which it was determined which taxes should and should not be deferrable is what is at issue.
