General Irish politics discussion thread

There is a much better discussion on the issue over on the Current Affairs forum.

Not a sentence you see typed too often

You've claimed that this case was about "profit shifting" schemes, and that "continuing 'profit shifting' schemes" would "jeopardise our place and reputation in the EU".

The case was about illegal State Aid, and the perception that Apple were allowed to avail of tax ruling that other taxpayers were not allowed to avail of.

You made the claim that "We created schemes for corporations to avoid paying tax for their own benefit" when this case hinged on 1) Apple creating a tax structure and asking Revenue for a judgement on it and 2) whether that tax structure was available for other companies to avail of.

You also claimed that Vestager was going to tackle our profit shifting structures - despite numerous posters pointing out to you that corporation tax remains a sovereign competency.

And of course repeatedly stating that:

"The ECJ actually said the arrangements for Apple were 'unlawful' "

"We made an arrangement with Apple that was 'unlawful'."

when the arrangements themselves were not unlawful. The failure to make those arrangements available to all other taxpayers was what was ruled to be unlawful, not the arrangements themselves. It's a technical difference, but then the entire case is based on technical interpretations of how State Aid rules interact with the TCA. Corporation Tax and Transfer pricing is a highly technical area - which is why this has taken over a decade to resolve.

When all you have is repeatedly reverting to appeals to authority, you are just highlighting yet again how little you understand about the case.

Profoundly wrong.

I quoted her from here:

Remarks by Executive Vice-President Vestager (europa.eu)

Source:

Today is a big win for European citizens and for tax justice.

The Court of Justice confirms the decision from 2016 by the European Commission: Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid which Ireland now has to recover.  And this judgement is final.

And here:

Despite these efforts, and as you can hear this is quite a lot, the unfortunate side is that aggressive tax planning practices are still widespread. According to the Commission's Annual Reports on taxation but also according to other studies, few Member States (Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium) seem to be central when it comes to profit shifting. In 2022, multinationals' global corporate profits amounted to about 16 trillion US dollars. 2.8 trillion dollars of these profits were made outside of their headquarters, in other tax jurisdictions. And about half of that was shifted to low-tax countries – including countries within the European Union. The cost is high for European citizens.

Today marks a step forward. And it's encouraging. It is encouraging for us to do more. The Commission will continue its work on harmful tax competition and aggressive tax planning. Both in terms of legislative proposals and enforcement. We will implement what we have decided

Carry on trying to shoot the messenger folks. Fact is, Vestager and the Commission are laying blame at our governments door, not it all maybe but we are in the frame. The 2016 ruling was upheld and is final:

In its decision in 2016, the Commission concluded that two Irish tax rulings constituted illegal State aid. *They had artificially lowered taxes paid by Apple in Ireland since 1991. The Commission considered this to be a misapplication of Irish tax rules and ordered Ireland to recover up to 13 billion euros from Apple.

For 'they' read Ireland. lest there be more confusion. (bolding and italics mine)

Still belching..

I do wonder if they'll ever go after the French semi-state system and the state aid going into that.

Like a lot of the anti-trust suits, these inevitably end up being an attempt by the EU to extract money from a highly valuable non-EU company while failing to look at the structures that prevent an EU based company from growing to that size/revenue.

Or if the Intel anti-trust case ($400m, peanuts these days) will quietly be dropped under the infinity of appeals given their current status and their general willingness to invest in European Fabs.

For this "windfall" it looks like the government has played it out as perfectly as they can, getting the money while being absolutely clear that they will back the MNC and the arrangements. I don't think the EU will have further appetite for similar cases with Ireland in the near-ish future.

This isn't an "idea" floated over the past few days, it's been talked about since the first rulings (over an election ago), portraying it as a recent thing is absolutely without merit:

They've also had Vestager row back on other countries being entitled to the tax:

Other EU countries could claim a portion of Ireland's €13 billion in back taxes from Apple (thejournal.ie)

If the Irish Cabinet decides to appeal the Commission’s decision, it must still recover the illegal state aid but could, for example, place the recovered amount in an escrow account pending the outcome of the EU court procedures.

Please stop trying to rewrite history.

Isn't it kind of the worst of both worlds for the opposition,SF in particular,a real win for the dept of finance top officials,I'm almost going to say they earned their salary with this one,a billion in interest for a 10 million cost and in their new term if they get one,the FF FG alliance can spend it on roads rail & housing,to solidify their support,fantastic (for them)

I didn't say the 'idea' was new, I said it has been floated here over the last few days and it has. One poster was bigging up the government for pulling off a stroke.

From the 2018 post you quoted.

This isn't really a situation where Ireland can just accept the ruling. It's one of those awkward legal messes where you're cannot admit liability and have to defend something on the grounds of being technically correct.

How has that strategy worked out for us? We lost, we tried to defend the system we had and it has been found to be unlawful resulting in reputational loss for Ireland.
We tacitly admitted that our system was wrong when we reformed it. To continue trying to deny the taxpayer the benefits of the tax when we knew we were wrong was and is the problem.

I.E. The government acted in Apple's interests not ours.

P.S. Hasn't money been withdrawn from the Escrow to pay 'another country's claim'?

This was already answered and backed up, the post has added nothing other than attempting to deflect and muddy.

Though do go through the detailed arrangements of the escrow account if you wish:

Apple’s Irish escrow fund loses further €259m as ECJ ruling awaited – The Irish Times

The effects of pervasive negative rates on European bonds and Apple being allowed to take out some money to pay taxes in other jurisdictions nibbled away at the original amount in the account between 2018 and 2021.

Are you saying that the remaining should not be spent and sent to other countries? SF would have already spent it.

It does appear the net gain,even after other countries got a bit, is still about a billion,plus the €13B,I'd say it's unlikely dept of Finance officials or the government are at all concened about the debate here,(not bad in fact for a paltry €10m invedtment?)except maybe to score their debaters,but thats more of a party hq thing ?

It's true though isn't it and thats the best part 😂

So it probably is true then,how is it so easy to blindside SF like this,do they ever see anything coming properly,greenhorns yet I suppose

Factcheck: The word mess waa not used in the above RTÉ article or mouthed by the IDA chief

It is the number one issue being asked by multinationals he said,and rightly so as there is a shortage

Luckily for Ireland,that shortage is being felt worldwide in the developed economies and secondly luckily for us,we have managed to have the fastest growth in house building in the EU last year per head of population despite the labour constraints

https://www.statista.com/statistics/650798/initiated-dwellings-by-country-europe/#:~:text=Approximately%206.21%20new%20residences%20were,for%20every%20one%20thousand%20citizens.