There's to be a new election in Ireland within the next three months and some, like Goldman Sachs is a little worried that the party Sinn Fein, once the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, is on track to double its support from the 2011 election to about 19 percent, polls indicate. In Davos today, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny sought to portray the political campaign as a battle between stability and chaos, adding that Sinn Fein in power could "devastate" the economy. Although the election is of no concern to us in North America, Sinn Fein's views of Apple are less favorable than those held by the standing Fine Gael Party.

In October we posted a report titled "Fiery Irish Finance Minister Says they'll fight any negative Ruling Regarding their Tax Deal with Apple." Sinn Fein on the other hand has a different take. While Sinn Fein stated in general that they have no interest in raising taxes for tech companies like Google and Facebook, they noted that "In government, Sinn Fein may pursue Apple for the taxes it could owe Ireland should the European Commission find against the company and the government in an ongoing probe," Doherty said.

Sinn Fein's finance spokesman Pearse Doherty added that "It's ridiculous in the extreme for the government to say no matter what the commission finds, no matter how stark the evidence may be, that they're going to appeal this. This would be tax that would be due from a company that is more wealthy than the entire Irish state." For more on this, read the full BloombergBusiness report here.

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