It is much more likely to be Brexit related. They are the ONLY highly educated and native english speaking country in the EU and are eating the UKs business
The land of scholars and saints.
I dont even think they have the lowest rate in the EU and they are free to set it however they wish.
The Irish sandwich loopholes are regarded as the largest tax avoidance scheme in history. It was actively facilitated by the Irish government the whole time.
> Irish state documents released to the Irish national archives in December 2018 showed that Fine Gael ministers in 1984 sought legal advice on how U.S. corporations could avoid taxes by operating from Ireland.
> the Irish government, on lobbying from PwC Ireland's IFSC tax partner, Feargal O'Rourke, relaxed the rules for sending royalty payments to non–EU countries without incurring Irish withholding tax.
> The Irish Revenue issued private rulings to Apple in 1991 and 2007 regarding this hybrid-double Irish structure, which the EU Commission considered as illegal State aid.
I never said that companies aren’t getting taxed - I said they’re avoiding/evading the massive amount of tax they /should/ be paying in the EU and instead only paying the bare minimum that IE wants from them.
Then you should lobby your national government to fight for this interest at EU level.
Note that you'll need to accept common debt and burden sharing if you want any hope of it passing.
If you don't want those things, then you're accepting tax competition as part of the price you pay for avoiding things you don't want.
Like, Ireland has incredibly high debt that we weren't allowed to default on by the EU/IMF/ECB so if you fix that, then I suspect the Irish people would be super happy to stop this unfair tax competition that you're talking about.
> It’s not clear to me why you keep rephrasing all of the IE gov’s tax evasion support as “competition”.
Can you explain to me why it's tax evasion rather than tax competition?
Like, taxation is not an EU competency so it's up to member states.
As for why it happened, basically Ireland has no natural resources, no historical wealth and was a basket case for hundreds of years. The government/civil servants decided that the best thing to do was to try and entice large multinationals to set up here, based first on it being an English speaking country, and it's really low wages.
The wages increased, and the pitch became that we were part of the EU, and didn't tax global revenue (just the Irish revenue), and didn't apply VAT on exports (particularly of interest to pharma).
And quite frankly, speaking as an Irish person, this was definitely in my best interests, as my generation of Irish people was the first to not have to emigrate for work.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of transfer pricing schemes in general, but those are the rules and Ireland played them relatively well.
> The gov is supporting business not people.
Historically true, the multinationals I worked for tended to pay very little tax, and I paid loads but not any more, since about 2016.
There are no secret tax deals. There have sometimes been "advance opinions", where Revenue clarifies the application of the rules to particular facts, but it does not agree to change the rules for specific companies.
There is also no facilitation of tax evasion.
As for playing fairly, the rules of the EU - that we all agreed to - state that taxation is a competence of the member states, ie, member states can set their own tax rates. Agreeing to those rules and then subsequently strong-arming small states into increasing their tax rates to reduce their competitiveness against larger economies is the definition of playing unfairly.
Ireland is recognised as a tax haven by basically everyone else. I think your framing really ignores the stark reality of how they’ve facilitated tax evasion.
The Irish sandwich loopholes are regarded as the largest tax avoidance scheme in history. It was actively facilitated by the Irish government the whole time.
> Irish state documents released to the Irish national archives in December 2018 showed that Fine Gael ministers in 1984 sought legal advice on how U.S. corporations could avoid taxes by operating from Ireland.
> the Irish government, on lobbying from PwC Ireland's IFSC tax partner, Feargal O'Rourke, relaxed the rules for sending royalty payments to non–EU countries without incurring Irish withholding tax.
> The Irish Revenue issued private rulings to Apple in 1991 and 2007 regarding this hybrid-double Irish structure, which the EU Commission considered as illegal State aid.
They will find another one after 15% rate too. The problem is not the effective rate (which is currently 12.5%) but that the companies are allowed to get away by paying 0% through the loop holes
Hilariously enough, because of all the anti-tax haven stuff, Ireland has ended up with the cleanest dirty shirt and now books lots of revenue from corporation tax.
Yes it does happen, search for r&d tax rebates, all Tech and Pharma companies apply for it, even though the work is not necessarily research one. I have worked in 3 MNCs and they all asked us to present our work as research instead of production
It is much more likely to be Brexit related. They are the ONLY highly educated and native english speaking country in the EU and are eating the UKs business
I dont even think they have the lowest rate in the EU and they are free to set it however they wish. The land of scholars and saints.
It’s not about the EU but the new global minimum tax initiative. With the new minimum corporate tax, if a host country doesn’t tax a multi-national company high enough, the difference will go to the country with the company headquarter! Thus of course you have to tax them anyway.
They lamented about both in the article. But the 1.5% levy only apply for national companies, so it cannot qualify for the "hit Ireland hardest" title. No, the hardest part is caused by the global minimum corporate tax, which will effectively end the tax heaven advantage Ireland has unfairly enjoyed until now.
The tax loopholes were closed years ago. All this will do is allow the Irish to cash in on their position without any blowback from the multinationals. Whom have already set up their operations in the country and basixally fund the countries new sovereign wealth fund.
I doubt Ireland has anything to worry about for decades. Since Brexit they are the ONLY highly educated and native english speaking country in the EU and are eating the UKs business being the link between EU and America. Their young educated youth are running most of the EUs tech companies now and the future of the world is tech.
No doubt. I saw a report several months ago and it listed Ireland as a hotbed of tech talent, which makes sense given the investment in Ireland over the last 20 years.
Ireland definitely has advantages other than its tax regime, but on the other hand the cost of living is sky high and infrastructure is poor. This makes it hard to attract and retain talent and will eventually start to weigh heavily on companies' decision to set up there. There doesn't appear to be any hope of a solution in the near term so Ireland is at risk of squandering its position as a global tech hub.
31 comments
[ 0.15 ms ] story [ 75.8 ms ] thread1. Setup secret tax deals with multinational companies
2. Enable large scale tax avoidance/evasion
3. $$$
4. Complain when the rest of the EU asks them to play fairly
It is much more likely to be Brexit related. They are the ONLY highly educated and native english speaking country in the EU and are eating the UKs business
The land of scholars and saints.
I dont even think they have the lowest rate in the EU and they are free to set it however they wish.
There’s literally a popular tax avoidance scheme called the “Double Irish” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
The Irish sandwich loopholes are regarded as the largest tax avoidance scheme in history. It was actively facilitated by the Irish government the whole time.
> Irish state documents released to the Irish national archives in December 2018 showed that Fine Gael ministers in 1984 sought legal advice on how U.S. corporations could avoid taxes by operating from Ireland.
> the Irish government, on lobbying from PwC Ireland's IFSC tax partner, Feargal O'Rourke, relaxed the rules for sending royalty payments to non–EU countries without incurring Irish withholding tax.
> The Irish Revenue issued private rulings to Apple in 1991 and 2007 regarding this hybrid-double Irish structure, which the EU Commission considered as illegal State aid.
Like, just look at the corporation tax income for Ireland for the past six or seven years, the money is definitely getting taxed in Ireland.
Note that you'll need to accept common debt and burden sharing if you want any hope of it passing.
If you don't want those things, then you're accepting tax competition as part of the price you pay for avoiding things you don't want.
Like, Ireland has incredibly high debt that we weren't allowed to default on by the EU/IMF/ECB so if you fix that, then I suspect the Irish people would be super happy to stop this unfair tax competition that you're talking about.
Becoming a tax haven is not a great longterm strategy and is not in the populace’s best interests. The gov is supporting business not people.
Can you explain to me why it's tax evasion rather than tax competition?
Like, taxation is not an EU competency so it's up to member states.
As for why it happened, basically Ireland has no natural resources, no historical wealth and was a basket case for hundreds of years. The government/civil servants decided that the best thing to do was to try and entice large multinationals to set up here, based first on it being an English speaking country, and it's really low wages.
The wages increased, and the pitch became that we were part of the EU, and didn't tax global revenue (just the Irish revenue), and didn't apply VAT on exports (particularly of interest to pharma).
And quite frankly, speaking as an Irish person, this was definitely in my best interests, as my generation of Irish people was the first to not have to emigrate for work.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of transfer pricing schemes in general, but those are the rules and Ireland played them relatively well.
> The gov is supporting business not people.
Historically true, the multinationals I worked for tended to pay very little tax, and I paid loads but not any more, since about 2016.
There is also no facilitation of tax evasion.
As for playing fairly, the rules of the EU - that we all agreed to - state that taxation is a competence of the member states, ie, member states can set their own tax rates. Agreeing to those rules and then subsequently strong-arming small states into increasing their tax rates to reduce their competitiveness against larger economies is the definition of playing unfairly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_as_a_tax_haven
The Irish sandwich loopholes are regarded as the largest tax avoidance scheme in history. It was actively facilitated by the Irish government the whole time.
> Irish state documents released to the Irish national archives in December 2018 showed that Fine Gael ministers in 1984 sought legal advice on how U.S. corporations could avoid taxes by operating from Ireland.
> the Irish government, on lobbying from PwC Ireland's IFSC tax partner, Feargal O'Rourke, relaxed the rules for sending royalty payments to non–EU countries without incurring Irish withholding tax.
> The Irish Revenue issued private rulings to Apple in 1991 and 2007 regarding this hybrid-double Irish structure, which the EU Commission considered as illegal State aid.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
Hilariously enough, because of all the anti-tax haven stuff, Ireland has ended up with the cleanest dirty shirt and now books lots of revenue from corporation tax.
Full disclosure: I live in Ireland and have benefited from these credits in the past (though not at present).
I dont even think they have the lowest rate in the EU and they are free to set it however they wish. The land of scholars and saints.
I doubt Ireland has anything to worry about for decades. Since Brexit they are the ONLY highly educated and native english speaking country in the EU and are eating the UKs business being the link between EU and America. Their young educated youth are running most of the EUs tech companies now and the future of the world is tech.