Ireland ‘will benefit’ from crackdown on tax regimes

Ireland is set to be a beneficiary of the crackdown on tax regimes, according the Minister for Enterprise and Jobs, Richard Bruton, despite the comments from the California Governor, Jerry Brown that Ireland allowed "creative accounting".

Speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Minister Bruton said that the Department of Finance and Minister Noonan had been leading work on trying to cut down on companies exploiting differences in tax codes to minimise their payments — before the OECD had established its base erosion and profit-shifting project.

Mr Bruton said that if Ireland was able to maintain its tax regime within the base erosion and profit-shifting regime that the country would have an advantage in attracting foreign investment.

“Ireland’s position is very clear. There is nothing wrong with our tax code; we are fully engaged in a process with the OECD and other multilateral colleagues to come up with multilateral changes that would make sure the interaction of these codes doesn’t add up to a way that would allow a company to avoid paying tax. And I think we can gain from this process as much as lose,” he said,

Mr Bruton reiterated that Ireland was not a tax haven and that the only countries that have anything to fear from the efforts to tax multinational corporations are those that allow companies to write their own tax codes as they set up in the jurisdiction.

Senator Feargal Quinn brought up the ongoing issue of upward-only rent reviews which he said continued to cripple the retail sector.

He asked that the Dáil pass the same piece of legislation that the Seanad had put forward to try and end the practice.

Mr Quinn acknowledged that the legislation might not make it into law but said that the Dáil should pass it and then leave it up to the Supreme Court to judge whether or not the abolition of the rent clauses would be constitutional.

“The then minister, Alan Shatter, did his very best on this and brought forward proposals for legal scrutiny and unfortunately they were found not to be robust and the Government could not go ahead with this.

“And while it was something we wanted to do, the view was very clear, that if the proposal went ahead, the State — you and I, taxpayers — would have to pay compensation to those who lost as upward-only wasn’t there.

“And I don’t think you could turn around to taxpayers at the moment and ask them to pick up the bill for that,” the senator said.