Nat O'Connor: Apple is the latest big global company in the spotlight about its tax affairs and Ireland is named and shamed as assisting the tech company to avoid massive amount of corporate tax in the USA; for example, in this New York Times article.
TASC's recent publication on Tax Injustice gives more detail about how Ireland's tax regime is used to avoid tax.
The irony is that Ireland's Finance Minister is currently leading the EU's charge against tax fraud and tax evasion, but the line between illegal evasion and legal (but increasingly aggressive) tax avoidance is more and more blurred. While a lot of the focus may be on the loopholes in US corporate tax that permits Apple to avoid tax, Ireland's role in facilitating tax avoidance needs to be critically examined as a risky strategy that is attracting negative comment around the world.
1 comment:
A Rotten Apple? Well Apple is a unionised plant in Cork paying good wages to up to 2000, but it makes staggering profits. Why will its greedy bosses not pay corporation tax even at the low levels of Irish Corporation Tax. It is disgusting that the compradors running Ireland appear to have done a deal to allow Apple to pay at only 2%.
Irate Taxpayer
Post a Comment