Finance Minister Michael Noonan has stepped up the Government’s campaign against Brussels’ plan for a new common corporate tax regime saying the proposal will endanger the international “consensus” on ways to tax multinationals.

The world’s biggest multi-nationals, including Apple and Google, insist they have paid every cent they legally owe in tax in every country in which they operate, including Ireland.

LATE last week Taoiseach Enda Kenny said Ireland remains opposed to the idea of a common consolidated corporate tax base. 

The European Union has launched a drive to combat tax evasion following a series of probes into rules that allow multinationals to slash their bills in Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands.

A trade union economic thinktank has linked the hospital emergency department crisis and other public service shortcomings to low levels of tax.

THE Nevin Economic Research Institute, which works for a “better, fairer society” and is supported by unions affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, has published research which suggests that our expectations around State services and our “low” taxes are out of kilter.

The Government has moved to play down comments by US president Barack Obama that American companies are using legal loopholes to save tax by setting up headquarters in Ireland.

Ireland is not a tax haven and has nothing to fear from proposed legislation that aims to clamp down on tax avoidance by multinationals, according to the head of tax policy at the OECD.

The Government has played an active role in developing the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting report, according to the organisation’s head of tax policy, Pascal Saint-Amans.

IN THE case of many multinationals it is unclear where the money goes, or what, if any, tax is paid on it, because the companies use set-ups that are not required to publish accounts. The unlimited company in Ireland is one example.

A REUTERS examination of accounts for hundreds of subsidiaries of the biggest US technology companies shows most do not declare a tax residence for their main business in the biggest European markets.

The OECD is working to overhaul structures which big multinationals, including many US tech giants, use to shield tens of billions of dollars of income from taxes, writes Tom Bergin.