Irish paradise

Ireland's unfair tax competition towards its partners is increasingly unsustainable.

52% of the profits of United States multinationals abroad were achieved in tax havens or semi-paradises, according to their recently published official data for 2018. And a similar figure, 47% of the profits they obtained in Europe, was conveyed from Ireland (83,000 million euros), which thus diverted through different circumvention methods the profits obtained by these companies in partner countries, to the detriment of their respective Haciendas.

This substantial damage to the rest of European taxpayers and to the financing of their welfare systems is directly caused by the unfair Irish corporate tax, officially 12.5%, but in practice, at much lower real rates. And it is perpetrated in combination with dark triangulations from the Netherlands and Luxembourg to Bermuda, the Bahamas and other hells of tax injustice. The reality is, however, pristine: for every dollar that the North American multinationals spent on salaries on the green island, they obtained nine in benefits, which they had naturally artificially redirected from other European jurisdictions.

This aggressive competition has registered two recent temporary reliefs for its beneficiaries. One is the ruling of the General Court of the EU dismissing the Commission's fine against Google for evading the payment of 14,300 million fees in Ireland. Another is the paralysis, by President Donald Trump, of the open global tax harmonization procedure in the OECD. A promising future is predicted for neither of them. The European high court is usually more demanding in these cases. And to this day the continuity of Trump's mandate does not look like anything secure.

But. Furthermore, the European economic scenario has undergone considerable change. The discussion of the recovery package has been linked to the 2021-2027 seven-year budget, the new European taxes for joint debt issuance and the reactionary role of semi-parasites like the Netherlands, which are still shortcuts to the Caribbean hells through Ireland. .

Ireland's unfair tax competition towards its partners is, moreover, increasingly unsustainable, of course from the minimum argumentative coherence. This country was the direct beneficiary of a gigantic global bailout in the Great Recession; and it is being especially pampered and protected by its partners (and harmed by its fiscal disloyalty) in the negotiation of the definitive British withdrawal from the United Kingdom, and the possible future agreement with the EU. In this process, the 27 defend the integrity of the domestic market against any hint of a Singaporean British paradise, with ridiculous, unfair and damaging taxes for its continental competitors. Just the ones that Ireland practices.