We must keep our corporation tax rate

FINANCE Minister Brian Cowen’s “not on my watch” assertion on Thursday to any increase in the nation’s 12.5% corporation tax is to be welcomed.

It’s the kind of reassurance that multinationals located here, or who are thinking about Ireland as a location, needed to hear after the Irish tax regime came under sharp scrutiny this week.

Reports that several US corporations saved hundreds of millions in tax in the US by exaggerating their Irish profits have not gone unnoticed, and the US revenue is said to be taking a hard look at what has been happening. This focus on Ireland has been partly fuelled by The Wall Street Journal.