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Here is Apple's reply to the situation (Thanks to dayglored for the heads up):

Apple: You can have taxes or you can have jobs, but you can't have both — Business Insider — August 30, 2016
by Jim Edwards

Apple's official statement on the EU ruling against its Irish tax arrangements tells you all you need to know about what is at stake: You can have taxes or you can have jobs, but Apple is in no mood to deliver both.
After learning on Tuesday morning that the EU expects Apple to pay 13 billion euros — equal to 11 billion pounds or $14.5 billion — in back taxes, the company said, "It will have a profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe."
That is not a threat, technically, but it will be seen as one by EU politicians who want to attract new companies to their countries.
In 1991, Apple struck a tax deal with Ireland that was aboveboard and legal. The Irish government provided Apple with a "comfort letter" that said the company would pay very low rates of tax if it based its European operations in Ireland.
In the 25 years since, Apple has created thousands of jobs in Ireland. By 2015, it had 5,000 employees in the country. Another 1,000 jobs are planned for the headquarters in the Irish city of Cork. This year, Apple will open its site near the town of Athenry, with another 200 jobs in the making.

Ireland doesn't want the back taxes from Apple:

Ireland doesn’t want Apple’s $14.5 billion in so-called back taxes — Mac Daily News — August 30, 2016
Apple’s billions in back taxes could cover the entire annual Irish health budget, build about 100,000 homes for the poor or pay off a chunk of the nation’s debt,” Dara Doyle and Peter Flanagan report for Bloomberg. “So why doesn’t the government want the money?”
“Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan on Tuesday vowed to fight a European Commission ruling that could force the world’s richest company to pay it at least 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion), more than twice the country’s entire 2015 corporate tax take and equivalent to about $3,000 for every man, woman and child,” Doyle and Flanagan report. “For the government, though, the stakes are higher. The country’s corporate tax regime is a cornerstone of its economic policy, attracting Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. to Dublin. Even when Ireland was forced to seek an international bailout six years ago, it resisted pressure to change how it taxes companies. While the Apple ruling doesn’t directly threaten the 12.5 percent rate, the government has promised to stand by executives it says are helping the economy. ‘To do anything else, it would be like eating the seed potatoes,’ Noonan told broadcaster RTE on Tuesday, adding a failure to fight the case would hurt future generations.”
“‘It’s all about our reputation,’ said Peter Vale, tax partner at Grant Thornton Ireland in Dublin. ‘It’s not the number that is a problem per se, it is the implication that Ireland engages in some kind of funny business around tax, the idea that we give special deals and so on,'” Doyle and Flanagan report. “The government maintains that even if it were to take the cash, European rules mean it would have to use the money to pay down some of its 180 billion euros of national debt rather than fund spending.”
Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Again, until this is all finally sorted out and the appeals are finished, anyone who decides to set up a business in a European Union member country today is insane.

The EU claims that Ireland offered special tax rates to huge companies but in 1991, when Apple opened its Ireland subsidiary, it was anything BUT a huge company. AAPL's total Market Cap in 1991 was under $6 billion. Any company could take advantage of the same tax rates Ireland was offering if they would locate their European presence in Ireland. Here is Tim Cooks' open Letter on the subject:

Tim Cook attacks EU Tax Ruling in scathing latter — CNBC — August 30, 2016.
by Holly Elliott
The head of tech giant Apple has hit back at the European Commission's ruling about its tax operations in Ireland saying that it has "serious, wide-reaching implications."
Responding to the Commission's decision that Ireland should recover 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) in back taxes from Apple, Tim Cook said that "in Ireland and in every country where we operate, follows the law and we pay all the taxes we owe."
Here is Tim Cook's letter in full:

A Message to the Apple Community in Europe
Thirty-six years ago, long before introducing iPhone, iPod or even the Mac, Steve Jobs established Apple's first operations in Europe. At the time, the company knew that in order to serve customers in Europe, it would need a base there. So, in October 1980, Apple opened a factory in Cork, Ireland with 60 employees.
At the time, Cork was suffering from high unemployment and extremely low economic investment. But Apple's leaders saw a community rich with talent, and one they believed could accommodate growth if the company was fortunate enough to succeed.
We have operated continuously in Cork ever since, even through periods of uncertainty about our own business, and today we employ nearly 6,000 people across Ireland. The vast majority are still in Cork — including some of the very first employees — now performing a wide variety of functions as part of Apple's global footprint. Countless multinational companies followed Apple by investing in Cork, and today the local economy is stronger than ever.
The success which has propelled Apple's growth in Cork comes from innovative products that delight our customers. It has helped create and sustain more than 1.5 million jobs across Europe — jobs at Apple, jobs for hundreds of thousands of creative app developers who thrive on the App Store, and jobs with manufacturers and other suppliers. Countless small and medium-size companies depend on Apple, and we are proud to support them.
As responsible corporate citizens, we are also proud of our contributions to local economies across Europe, and to communities everywhere. As our business has grown over the years, we have become the largest taxpayer in Ireland, the largest taxpayer in the United States, and the largest taxpayer in the world.
Over the years, we received guidance from Irish tax authorities on how to comply correctly with Irish tax law — the same kind of guidance available to any company doing business there. In Ireland and in every country where we operate, Apple follows the law and we pay all the taxes we owe.
The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple's history in Europe, ignore Ireland's tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process. The opinion issued on August 30th alleges that Ireland gave Apple a special deal on our taxes. This claim has no basis in fact or in law. We never asked for, nor did we receive, any special deals. We now find ourselves in the unusual position of being ordered to retroactively pay additional taxes to a government that says we don't owe them any more than we've already paid.
The Commission's move is unprecedented and it has serious, wide-reaching implications. It is effectively proposing to replace Irish tax laws with a view of what the Commission thinks the law should have been. This would strike a devastating blow to the sovereignty of EU member states over their own tax matters, and to the principle of certainty of law in Europe. Ireland has said they plan to appeal the Commission's ruling and Apple will do the same. We are confident that the Commission's order will be reversed.
At its root, the Commission's case is not about how much Apple pays in taxes. It is about which government collects the money.
Taxes for multinational companies are complex, yet a fundamental principle is recognized around the world: A company's profits should be taxed in the country where the value is created. Apple, Ireland and the United States all agree on this principle.
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. 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.
Beyond the obvious targeting of Apple, the most profound and harmful effect of this ruling will be on investment and job creation in Europe. Using the Commission's theory, every company in Ireland and across Europe is suddenly at risk of being subjected to taxes under laws that never existed.
Apple has long supported international tax reform with the objectives of simplicity and clarity. We believe these changes should come about through the proper legislative process, in which proposals are discussed among the leaders and citizens of the affected countries. And as with any new laws, they should be applied going forward — not retroactively.
We are committed to Ireland and we plan to continue investing there, growing and serving our customers with the same level of passion and commitment. We firmly believe that the facts and the established legal principles upon which the EU was founded will ultimately prevail.
Tim Cook