In the maelstrom of commentary around the European Commission's investigation into whether Ireland lets Apple pay too little tax, there have been a few misinterpretations and some flat-out lies in how it is being explained to us. Here are three of the most glaring examples.

1. Many of us are confusing the basic charge sheet

Whether it's a genuine mix-up in language or an irresistible temptation to go for the most damning headline, many of us in the US, British and Irish media got some basic facts wrong in our reporting.

"Apple hit by Brussels findings over Irish backroom tax deals," roared the Financial Times on its headline front page story last Monday, setting off a chain reaction of similarly-worded headlines among hundreds of online outlets. Except there was - and is - no "finding" by Brussels. There is merely a case that the European Commission is setting forth, which will be investigated for many months. True, the Commission's charge sheet said that it has an initial opinion of unwarranted state aid to Apple from Ireland. But any considered analysis of this language understands that European cases use this type of language in an entirely different way to US, British or Irish legal processes.

In other words, there is actually no finding at all: the Commission's position is that its view is not conclusive and may be successfully rebutted.

Then there is the basic charge itself. Some of us have mixed up what it is that the Commission is actually investigating.

For example, it is not ruling on the validity of any Irish tax rate. Instead, it is probing whether Ireland was correct or incorrect in accepting a certain proportion of Apple's profits that the company sought to declare in Ireland, where there happens to be a low tax rate. Otherwise put, did Apple wrongly shift profits from Germany, France and the UK into Ireland to pay much lower tax here than in those countries?

2. Grandstanding US senators are actually the ones who created Apple's tax loopholes

US senators have repeatedly sought to paint Ireland as a "tax haven" that sucks taxes out of America.

For example, this is what Senator Carl Levin, who led last year's US Senate hearings into Apple's tax affairs, said on Tuesday: "Apple developed its crown jewels - lucrative intellectual property - in the United States, used a tax loophole to shift the profits generated by that valuable property offshore to avoid paying US taxes, then boosted its profits through a sweetheart deal with the Irish government."

What Levin didn't say is that the "loophole" that makes the entire process possible was deliberately passed into law by his own Senate and Congressional colleagues. In other words, Senator Levin is complaining about a tax avoidance scheme that he himself introduced.

How? It's summed up nicely by UCC economist Seamus Coffey in a very detailed analysis on his blog, Economic-Incentives.blogspot.ie.

"It is US politicians who voted for a provision that allowed Apple to avoid paying $12.5bn of tax in just two years," Coffey writes. "The 'look-through rule' was introduced there in 2005 and has been extended several times since then, most recently as part of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. It is this 'look-through rule' that has allowed Apple to avoid paying $12.5bn of taxes in just two years. So we have politicians in a country which allows zero tax to be collected on some profit in its jurisdiction accusing a country which collects 12.5pc on all profits earned in its jurisdiction of being a tax haven."

3. EU partners' moral outrage on the issue is more than a little cheeky

Whereas the Americans have, at least, the honesty to discuss this issue in the context of financial self-interest, some of our European partners are trying to beat a morality drum. Germany, France - and latterly Britain - have all sought to paint the Apple/Ireland tax issue as a matter of equity and justice.

If there are such considerations involved, those countries are in a very poor position to go promulgating them.

Britain, for example, continues to devote considerable energy into protecting big banks, hedge funds and other financial services interests: the kernel that almost crashed the world a few years ago. Germany, meanwhile, made sure that there was no moral hazard attached to, for example, its banks loaning billions to Irish institutions and any subsequent sharing of recovery risk.

Apparently, low taxes attracting multinationals threaten an equitable capitalist system, but heaping half of Europe's banking debt onto a single tiny country is just business.

Sunday Indo Business