To be fair to Ireland it also would require other countries drop the hidden advantages to business that countries grant to gain unfair advantage.

Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, France's support to state industries and use of its intelligence services to gain competitive business contracts, the US subsidising research through military investment, Delaware Corps, Swiss banks being Swiss banks, Scandinavian companies using bribes, various favoured semi-state companies in Eastern Europe with suspiciously tight political connections, Israel using state resources and insider access for trusted businesses, Korean State lead industry, Chinas intellectual property theft, Italy and Greece's lack of tax collection, Dutch taxes, Malta's money laundering, the UK using Trusts, the Island of Man and BVI to allow companies manipulate tax but keeping it at an arm's length, UKs revolving door between intelligence/gov/banking, the UK letting dodgy money wash through London.

Ireland is one of the worse on the corporate tax but in many ways we are just a rocky previously poor outcrop that has found a way to be competitive openly. Many others do unfair things in more hidden ways and everything needs to be on the table.

Ireland, is far from a rocky poor outcrop. A look at the cost of living indexes will convince anyone. And what is frequently missed on it is that this -surreal COL- is yet another form of indirect taxation on the salaries of people. So, it's a bit more sinister than letting the companies tax evade. Ireland is moving the tax burden down to its workers, out to the rest of EU and off the big companies and the landlords lobby.

Also "others are not playing well either" is not a convincing argument. Ireland is on par with Cayman islands and similar tax havens on a whole another level - unlike any of the countries that you're pointing at.

Poster said "rocky _previously_ poor outcrop". If you take a look at any of the economic indicators before the early 90s, you'll see a very different picture.

There is absolutely no doubt that the policy of encouraging foreign-direct-investment has transformed Ireland into a modern and wealthy nation. The question is whether we sold our souls to the devil to achieve that. My personal take is no, but I respect the opposing opinion.

The issue today is indeed CoL, but that is a function of the government's failure to build. We were poor before the celtic tiger, we got addicted to property, the financial crisis hit us incredibly hard, and we are not building housing nearly quick enough today, especially with the (welcome!) influx of continental europeans to Ireland as multilingual workers servicing the european market for these US companies. There's a fresh batch of emigration happening now for this very reason.

Yes agreed. The COL is stupid for what you get in return. It's shifting the burden from big business to the employees.

> Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage,

I grant the first one, but how exactly does Germany control/manipulate the Euro?

Easily.

When the Euro started the German economy was in a terrible stagnation.

The Euro needed to be higher for countries like Ireland that economically were doing very well at the time. By keeping it low to make German exports more competitive it meant countries like Ireland overheated, instead of having a natural breaking mechanism though higher interest rates. Irish interest rates were way too low at the time. (Of course that doesn't remove our responsibility for not taking the loans or for regulating things better)

Tons of money in Germany that was making little return then flooded into countries running hot. When this stupid money should have been written off as bad loans the Germans strong armed Ireland and elsewhere to pay it all back in full. Many of these debts should have been properly haircut.

It's the same thing with the Euro post 2008. Germany's tight control of its policy means it gets the strongest say on what actions the ECB takes and generally how the wider EU approaches finances etc.

> and for countries like Ireland or Netherlands it is better

Don't know about Ireland, but saw a TV highlight about 2yrs ago, that analysed benefits for the country and found there hardly aren't any. For regular citizens and the economy in general, at least. That a lot of the revenues flow to those upholding this lax tax system, while the huge money streams flow through NL to end up in even more lax tax havens.

Having large multinational corporations is hugely beneficial to the Irish economy, through direct employment. Sure any company that is just a brass plaque and funneling money through Ireland is of no benefit, but most of the big ones have significant high quality high tech jobs here. Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel, you name it, they all have huge operations here.

Yes and no. Ireland may seem materially better off than they were before, but they've effectively been recolonized. Putting aside matters of tax evasion, these corporations aren't sticking to just employing labor. They're also politically influential. The rapid shift in Irish cultural norms in recent years is jaw-dropping.

I think the shift in culture is directly correlated to being better off for the average person. Dublin is very different from rural places, that have changed more slowly. Its modernisation, for better or worse. Politics is as crooked as ever. Some serious sennanigans were had well before the multinationals were big

Tax evasion should be prosecuted, but I believe most of the time I read about these companies and taxes, it's about tax avoidance, such as the source article for this thread.

It's probably legal, even though it's not as intended. If you need 50 shell companies you are clearly abusing some loopholes, which I morally/ethically consider wrong. But that's something society has to fix ...

Finding loopholes seems like it's perfectly aligned with the hacker ethos. We cheer when we read about the guy who figured out how to always win at Press Your Luck, the guy who gamed the lotto system to greatly increase his odds, the guy who bought large quantities of pudding and got enough free air miles to last the rest of his life. I wouldn't be surprised if the first lawyers who figured out these loopholes got the same hacker high from finding the cracks in the system. Of course, for the first 3 examples, the loopholes were closed after those people exploited it. Now if the governments don't close these well-known loopholes, isn't it equivalent to implicitly condoning them?

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d say the hacker ethos would be to, yes, exploit that loophole but also publicize the dickens out of it so it gets fixed and refactored into a more rational system that obviates that whole class of errors.

Hacker Ethos is mot to find the bug in the bank's system and transfer a billion dollar, but to find the issue and report it and get it fixed. The hacker Ethos is to improve things.

Some math is needed here, but intuition tells me 20% of X companies is more than 1% of X + Y companies, Y being those who decide to evade taxes by being incorporated in Ireland.

My interpretation of the grandparents comment is the $6B in revenue (probably from outside Ireland) would not be subject to the 20% tax, while they are subject to 1% tax. So by raising taxes to 20%, you lose all foreign companies like Uber paying 1%, which may very well add up to much more than purely revenue originating within Ireland.

I could be completely wrong, I’m not a tax lawyer

Mind that currently they take 1% of all EU revenues of international corporations.

For a "fair" scheme they would tax on their share of revenue.

Irish GDP is about 2.5% of EU GDP. 20% of 2.5% is 0.5%

So with the current scheme they make double.

And yes, that calculation is wrong in many ways. On the one side the current GDP is increased due to the tax business (they are 1% of population) on the other hand there are still many company's not doing the Irish game. And yes, I ignored the Dutch for this calculation ...