Tim Cook Blasts $14.5B European Commission Tax Bill; Will Fight It & Predicts Overturn

Calling the move "unprecedented," Cook portrayed the Commission's decision as potentially dangerous, with "serious, wide-reaching implications." He argued that a company's profits should be taxed "in the country where value is created" -- a principle he said Ireland, the U.S. and Apple all agree on.

"In Apple's case, nearly all of our research and development takes place in California, so the vast majority of our profits are taxed in the United States," he wrote. "European companies doing business in the U.S. are taxed according to the same principle. But the Commission is now calling to retroactively change those rules."