Should Ireland agree to the 15% Multinational Corporation Tax Rate?

MrEarl said:
Ireland has a veto, when it comes to the EU agreeing to things like tax harmonisation, and we should use it, even if it does upset a few of our bigger European partners. It won't be a surprise to them, anyway, given we will just be maintaining our clear long term position on Corporation Tax.
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I think that would be a really stupid thing to do, you can really only legitimately use your veto once therefore it must be of crucial national importance. Are you suggesting we use this veto to maintain a very low corporation tax which ultimately benefits the richest technology companies on the planet. The optics of that would be terrible.

You say we have no natural resources but we have one very valuable natural resource that we have given away , fishing . We were laughing at the Brits for making such a big deal out of fishing . Surely if we were to use a veto on anything it should have been on fish, yes it is a small part of our economy now but that is precisely because we have handicapped it. We would be on much stronger grounds morally to fight for our rights on this .
 
MrEarl said:
We need to think about the future, not just the present, and the past.

We are a country with very limited natural resources, we cannot compete on price given higher overheards (ultimately due to the cost of living), and incur higher costs to inport / export goods and services, due to being an island.

Ireland has a veto, when it comes to the EU agreeing to things like tax harmonisation, and we should use it, even if it does upset a few of our bigger European partners. It won't be a surprise to them, anyway, given we will just be maintaining our clear long term position on Corporation Tax.
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Why should the EU care, seeing we let the cost of living get out of control, we are an Island if we mess up it's our own fault,
We have been rewarding ourselves with loopholes in corporation tax for years,

The Government closes tax loopholes all the time I never see anyone shed a tear for the people who benefited when they existed,
 
I can see why the government is worried about the international taxation question, its bigger than just the corporation tax issue. Ireland's biggest trading partner by a long shot is the US, we do more trade with the US than even the whole EU as a block marginally based on 2019 statistics. Not even Brexit britain does that much trade with the US, they do more trade with the EU27 than the US.. Only Switzerland in Europe shares that honour of doing more trade with the US. We all know Switzerlands long history of being a financial tax haven

 
joe sod said:
You say we have no natural resources but we have one very valuable natural resource that we have given away , fishing . We were laughing at the Brits for making such a big deal out of fishing . Surely if we were to use a veto on anything it should have been on fish, yes it is a small part of our economy now but that is precisely because we have handicapped it. We would be on much stronger grounds morally to fight for our rights on this .
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Our fishing industry was only ever accessing less than a quarter of the potential catch. There's no way we were ever going to put in the infrastructure to fix that. This is like (but nowhere near as stupid) as the argument that we gave away billions worth of oil and gas.

Access to the EU is about trade and we've done remarkably well out of that. We have a large sector of highly efficient and capital intensive multinationals. They are the engine of our economy and we need to look after then. Farming as a sector is like a massive FAS scheme where totally unsustainable businesses are kept alive with huge subsidies. Agriculture has been on the Covid Payment for the last 48 years.
 
Purple said:
Our fishing industry was only ever accessing less than a quarter of the potential catch. There's no way we were ever going to put in the infrastructure to fix that. This is like (but nowhere near as stupid) as the argument that we gave away billions worth of oil and gas.

Access to the EU is about trade and we've done remarkably well out of that. We have a large sector of highly efficient and capital intensive multinationals. They are the engine of our economy and we need to look after then. Farming as a sector is like a massive FAS scheme where totally unsustainable businesses are kept alive with huge subsidies. Agriculture has been on the Covid Payment for the last 48 years.
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I agree
What makes you think we in Ireland can look after the highly efficient and capital intensive multinationals
sectors and at the same time give huge subsidies to sectors with huge lobby groups with an ear in every party likely to form a government after the reform of corporation taxation Worldwide,

I expect the multinational sectors will slowly drift away as the main parties trip over themselves
looking after old lobby groups with close links to all the main parties including SF,
 
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We should wait. If the US congress passes it then we can change citing matching the EU and US figures. The principle that only the government of Ireland changes Irish tax rate needs to be maintained. If we come out and agree to the principle of 15%, our European colleagues will twist us into doing it no matter what occurs at the OECD. Ireland is not a large country that can indirectly subsidise corporations, we arent on the continent to be plugged into the supply chain. We have to user blunter instruments to attract and maintain MNCs.

We can weather the tide of MNCs investment going out. Only if it is managed and replaced with the growth of homegrown industries; partially financed by Irish capital so the dividends is spent in the local economy. The MNCs have been beneficial in establishing/enriching the Irish middle class, we must now use their wealth and their ingenuity to spur local growth.

The corporation tax rate helps on this front also.
 
Anyone who thinks that we'll retain the various MNCs, not to mention attract more, if we increase the Corporation Tax Rate to 15%, is nuts.

We simply cannot compete, so will lose out to lower cost economies. MNCs prioritise their shareholders ahead of all else, so won't pay unnecessarily high overheads.
 
Many MNCs Paid their employees a premium to get the best people around in their outpost locations
the real reason they were in these outpost locations was high Corporation tax in their home country or the country's they sell their products in,

There will be new pressure on the MNCs to locate back to where they sell most of their products
Once it is legal to pay corporation tax where the product is sold,
We have seen with Covid how important it is for MNCs to manufacturing in the big powerful countries from now on,
Or should I say the Big powerful countries taking in more Corporation tax can incentives MNCs to locate to their countries leaving outposts locations for good,
 
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joe sod said:
I think that would be a really stupid thing to do, you can really only legitimately use your veto once therefore it must be of crucial national importance. Are you suggesting we use this veto to maintain a very low corporation tax which ultimately benefits the richest technology companies on the planet.
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Says who?
 
Sophrosyne said:
Do you mean where they manufacture the product?
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That's where it gets complicated. Most of Apple's products are manufactured in China but the manufacturing cost is probably less than 20% of the retail price. Apple have around 20% of the global smartphone market but around 80% of the profits.
Where is the value added?
Where are the Apps developed?
How much does branding and advertising add to the overall price and profit?
On the back of the iPhone it used to say "Designed in California and assembled in China".
How much of the supply chain is in China? Where are those companies from and where do they pay their taxes?

And that's just Apple.
Pharma companies are even more complex. The first pill costs $3 billion, the second one costs a cent. Where was the IP developed? We know where it resides but where should it reside?

Look at these whales closely and they are actually shoals of tiny fish in the shape of a whale.
 
Purple said:
And that's just Apple.
Pharma companies are even more complex. The first pill costs $3 billion, the second one costs a cent. Where was the IP developed? We know where it resides but where should it reside?
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thats where Ireland got the biggest benefit, the ability of the tech companies to move the IP to Ireland. Everyone knows most of the IP was developed in California even after all the globalization the brains of the tech companies still reside predominately in California. The tech companies know that there is no threat that a competitor will emerge in Ireland that is why they are so comfortable moving it here. However they are very wary of the Chinese stealing their IP .
 
I find it amusing that people state Ireland should veto it or not agree to raise its cooperation tax. This is quite irrelevant afaik what Ireland does as the US idea is that in case country x is not raising the tax the US will just present a higher tax bill to companies for the delta. And Ireland can't veto a US law - doesn't matter how many bowls of shamrock are sent over for Paddies day...

It is a fact that companies are funneling profits from the US and Central Europe to Ireland, Luxemburg, Caribbean Islands etc. The US just "stops" that by increasing the tax bill for companies doing that kind of funneling via tax havens like Ireland. Nothing Ireland can really do about that. In the end companies will lose the incentive to funnel profits as it is taxed anyway at source or the tax havens have increased their cooperate tax and they need to compete differently for companies.
 
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Merowig said:
This is quite irrelevant afaik what Ireland does as the US idea is that in case country x is not raising the tax the US will just present a higher tax bill to companies for the delta. And Ireland can't veto a US law - doesn't matter how many bowls of shamrock are sent over for Paddies day...
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I agree with this in a way.

Ireland's corporation tax is what it is for all companies, multinational or otherwise.

If the US has difficulty in taxing its own companies then it needs to look at its own corporation tax regime and the terms of its own tax treaties rather than manipulating a global tax rate for every other country.
 
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If the US charges the company on the delta between X and 12.5% for countries funneling profits through Ireland it basically removes the incentive of Irelands lower tax rate for Multinationals.
It looks like the days of attracting and keeping Multinationals with low tax rates alone are counted.
 
How about an international agreement that puts 0% tax on corporations?

That way this circus can come to an end and the legal and accounting industry that sustains it and benefits from it will be nullified, partially at least.
Corporations are after all nothing but bits of paper given legal standing.
Instead, the people who own the company and the people who work in the company are the entities that avail of the public services that the taxes pay for.
Labour is already taxed heavily in this country, after €35,000, so profits made on sale of shares could match those tax rates?
Capital appreciation could be taxed.
To prevent hoarding and increase fluidity of the stock, greater participation of the population, defuse the pension 'time-bomb', and critically overall financial independence.
 
There is a fundamental difference between the MNC's who have set up manufacturing or support services here and those who are routing their sales through an entity that is simply a name on the door. Facebook etc are not going to pull out of the Silicon Dock because suddenly their corporate tax rate is going to jump to 15%. Most of what Facebook pays in Corporate Tax in Ireland at 12.5% has sod all to do with what their staff does in Dublin. Instead, it is clever Tax avoidance.

What will happen is that the MNC's will instead try to find a different way to avoid paying Corporate Tax and potentially may route some of their figures through another country with a lower rate. Then we as a country lose out.
 
Peanuts20 said:
Most of what Facebook pays in Corporate Tax in Ireland at 12.5% has sod all to do with what their staff does in Dublin.
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I think you'll find a pretty substantive link between the activity taxable in Ireland and the work of the Irish-based staff.

If there wasn't the IRS would be pretty interested.
 
Peanuts20 said:
Facebook etc are not going to pull out of the Silicon Dock because suddenly their corporate tax rate is going to jump to 1
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"Silicon Dock" is a stupid name anyway, there is absolutely no silicon on those docks, the only silicon is in Intel in leixlip probably the only significant technology manufacturer in the country. A truer name would be "The global IP export and taxation dock"
 
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