Ireland Still Refuses to Answer the $14.5 Billion Tax Question
The country’s low-tax model, including its appeal against the EU’s Apple fine, isn’t central to the election. But Dublin can’t avoid the global shift on tax.
Ducking the question.
Photographer: NIALL CARSON/AFPQuestion: Which economic headwind is projected to cost Ireland some 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) between now and 2025? No, not Brexit. The answer is corporate tax reform.
Last month, Ireland’s finance minister Paschal Donohoe, whose ruling party Fine Gael is struggling in opinion polls ahead of Saturday’s general election, raised this red flag as one of several global risks threatening the small, trade-reliant country of 4.9 million people. As the international loopholes allowing elaborate tax-dodging schemes — made famous by the likes of Starbucks Corp., Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. — gradually get closed, and as countries around the world start to overhaul the way taxes are collected, Donohoe warned that Ireland should budget for an estimated 500 million-euro hit every year from 2022. His country has been a magnet for the “tax-optimizing” plans of international companies via its 12.5% corporate tax rate and other perks.