EU Believes Apple's Irish Tax Deal Breached Rules (Tom Fairless/Wall Street Journal)

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EU Believes Apple's Irish Tax Deal Breached Rules (Tom Fairless/Wall Street Journal)

Sept. 30, 2014 4:05 a.m. ET

BRUSSELS—European Union regulators said Tuesday they believe that tax deals granted to



















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in Ireland constitute illegal state support for the U.S. company, in a letter to the Irish government that set out the reasoning behind the decision to open an in-depth investigation in June.

The European Commission, the 28-member bloc's central antitrust authority, said it had reached the "preliminary view" that tax deals struck in Ireland in 1991 and 2007 in favor of the Apple group constitute state aid.

"Through those rulings the Irish authorities confer an advantage on Apple" that is "granted in a selective manner," the commission wrote.

"That advantage is obtained every year and ongoing, when the annual tax liability is agreed upon by the tax authorities in view of that ruling," the letter said.

"The Commission has doubts about the compatibility of such state aid with the Internal market," it said.

Interested parties, including Apple, will have a month to comment once the notice is published in the EU's official journal in the next few weeks. From that point, state-aid cases usually take up to 18 months to reach a conclusion.

Write to Tom Fairless at tom.fairless@wsj.com

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