US drops reference to Ireland as a tax haven

THE White House has dropped any reference to Ireland from a fact sheet that accompanied President Barack Obama’s announcement of his crackdown on tax havens.

Ireland was explicitly linked to havens that the fact sheet said helped corporations evade taxes. But by late on Tuesday, the reference to Ireland, and two other countries, had been removed.

The fact sheet originally cited Ireland, the Netherlands and Bermuda as three small countries where, in one year, a third of all foreign profits of US corporations came from.