Budget can help boost Ireland’s attractiveness

With less than two weeks to go to Budget 2017, the speculation about what it might contain is intensifying. Nothing terribly unusual in that, but some of the suggestions doing the rounds are somewhat bewildering.

Top of the pile has to be the suggestion that a special 30% personal tax rate should apply for a temporary period, as in five years, for Irish (and presumably non-Irish) abroad with certain skills who move into the Irish labour market.

The rationale is obvious, namely to incentivise people with certain scarce and valuable skills to come into the Irish workforce. Not surprisingly and very justifiably, the suggestion has attracted a high level of criticism.