Seamus Coffey: Meant to be a target of global tax reform, Ireland has instead been a big beneficiary

For now, we are riding the crest of a wave, a wave that others, perhaps unintentionally, created for us. 

There were dire warnings about the effect on Ireland about US corporation tax reform, but their multinational firms have a real presence in Ireland and it's no-tax jurisdictions that suffered profit migration in the wake of the reforms. Picture: Denis Scannell

Ireland’s corporate tax regime has been under intense scrutiny for the last 15 years at least, and significant international cooperation led to the agreement for major reforms under the process led by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Significantly, at a national level, the US Congress passed a major reform bill in late 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. 

The advocates of global tax reform may not have had in their mind that a big beneficiary of the changes would have been Ireland. Ireland’s corporate tax regime came about from a desire to attract investments that would provide employment for Irish workers and end the blight of persistent emigration.