Is the corporation tax surge over? The short answer is no. What is over is the era of ever-expanding tax takes. We are dependent on a small number of firms doing very well. Their granular success is ours: When they have a down quarter, so do we.
Why is the energy drinks global giant expanding its Co Kildare factory at a time of high inflation and rising corporation tax rates? The answer lies in the fine print governing tax deductibles.
The Department of Finance’s reference to weak pharmaceutical exports identifies the US pharma multinational as the latest contributor to the fall in corporation tax receipts below last year’s level for the first 10 months of 2023.
The EU Tax Observatory names Ireland as the joint top destination for multinationals to shift profits and cut corporation tax. Economist Gabriel Zucman says new global rules will benefit Ireland in the short term but believes the tax-competitive model is doomed.
With all EU countries obligated to impose the 15 per cent minimum corporation tax rate from next year, a multi-billion-dollar subsidiary of the semiconductor giant straddling Ireland and Malta is moving away from Dublin. But where will the tax be paid eventually?
Microsoft has just disclosed a multi-billion-dollar dispute with the IRS over the transfer pricing arrangements it put in place two decades ago. Ireland was central to those structures.
Minister for Finance Michael McGrath has just unwrapped a €14bn budget package. In an in-depth interview, he explains the political and economic philosophies that underpin it.
People wanted short-term measures to assist with rising costs in the knowledge that the tax receipts that support them could well evaporate. And that contradiction underpinned Budget 2024.
In a perfect illustration of coalition politics, Budget 2024 allocates some windfall corporation tax to future current spending, some to the stability of capital expenditure, some to green policies - and most to an immediate giveaway.
As corporation tax receipts fall below forecasts, the largest payments yet to come this year will determine the new trend after years of runaway growth.
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