Availed of by 66,000 firms, the €2.8bn wage subsidy scheme has been the cornerstone of the government’s economic response to Covid-19. However, Revenue has identified abuses including payroll manipulation and turnover suppression.
Thousands of farmers in the co-op at the origin of Kerry Group were targeted by the tax authority over the status of so-called patronage shares. A new landmark case has revealed how the probe came unstuck.
In a new unified set of proposals, 137 countries have narrowed down the rulebook that will reallocate tax paid by global firms towards those countries where they really make profits. This would mean lower corporation tax receipts for Ireland – yet a number of key pieces are still missing in the puzzle, awaiting political agreement put on ice by Donald Trump this year.
The State has the immediate means to support those businesses and workers most affected by the pandemic, but next month’s budget also needs to address where resources and debt repayments will come from in the medium term.
In addition to the housing crisis, the pandemic forces us to fund better health services, support businesses and retrain many unemployed workers. It is time to ask who will pay.
The Programme for Government has promised €9.5 billion to help households and farmers become greener, funded by a four-fold increase in carbon tax over the coming decade. Data compiled by tax officials shows this is unlikely to happen.
Another day, another multi-billion dollar liquidation of a healthy Irish subsidiary by a multinational. Western Digital has taken advantage of US tax breaks to repatriate profits accumulated over the past 15 years by the popular brand of USB drives.
The volume of assets realised through members’ voluntary liquidations has increased nearly 30-fold during the first five months of this year. Why do so many shareholders agree to shut down their company and walk with the cash?
The consequences of the Apple case continue to reverberate, with the recently renamed NortonLifeLock just one of the multinationals changing their corporate structures. After intellectual property transfers and the liquidation of corporate entities straddling Ireland and Jersey, new filings provide the missing piece of the jigsaw in the US online security giant’s Irish move: the consolidation of its global sales empire in a Dublin business park.
The 2016 state aid decision and yesterday’s court judgment quashing it book-end four years that have seen hundreds of billions worth of intellectual property routed to Ireland. The case has influenced where multinationals locate the source of profits, and this influence is set to continue.
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