Big questions surround corporate tax bounty as voters are left uninformed

The companies, Revenue and now foreign jurisdictions know how much multinationals are paying the State. It seems the only people not to know are the voters.

On Wednesday, with the Department of Finance releasing tax and spend figures for November, the focus will fall back on the huge corporate tax bounty which is driving the remarkable surge in Government revenues.

Over the first 10 months of the year, the State had already collected €2bn more from corporate taxes than it had anticipated a year ago.

That huge amount, enough to plug the annual overspend on the health budget three times over, has sparked a big debate over why exactly the bounty is so large and just exactly which or what type of firms are contributing the bulk of this treasure.

But detailed answers are still missing.

Budget watchdog the Irish Financial Fiscal Advisory Council would certainly like to know much more.

Last week it said the Coalition has already earmarked a huge part of the surge in 2015 corporate tax receipts to fund a €1.5bn pre-budget spending splurge, over the last few weeks of the current year.

But little is known about what is driving tax increases.

The Department of Finance and lately the Revenue Commissioners, which after all, knows everything about which firms are paying the State what amounts of tax, had signalled the extra revenues reflect activity across the economy, allaying suspicions that a small number of multinationals are making back payments for some tax bill or other.

The Revenue, in a letter released by the department last week, said €1.2bn of the €2bn unexpected bounty was accounted for by a number of multinationals and that overall the increases were broad-based.

The department and Revenue, however, on Wednesday will face more questions because the new figures for the first 11 months of the year will show that the corporate tax receipts are once again rising at an exceptional rate.

It seems odd that after all that has happened here that transparency is lacking. (The banks and government agency Nama continue to cite banking confidentiality over banking relationships to trump other rights. The Revenue cites confidentiality on tax matters.)

Are controversial tax inversions which have raised the ire both at the US Treasury and with White House contenders driving Irish tax revenues?

Has the OECD process, that blew time on some global tax havens and led to pressure on Dublin to phase out the ‘double Irish’ and other wheezes, meant multinationals are paying more tax?

Has an upswing in profits from the pronounced surge of the dollar led to more profits on which to levy the 12.5%?

There are also good reasons the public should be told more.

The huge $160bn (€150bn) Pfizer takeover of rival US giant Allergan is driven by Irish tax considerations.

The country is under investigation for claims it struck too-sweet a deal with Apple 15 years ago.

Ireland is not the only country facing scrutiny, but it attracts a lot of unfavourable world headlines.

The EU is threatening a new version of common consolidated corporate tax.

Ireland will now share more information about the tax affairs of companies with other jurisdictions.