Ireland not a tax haven, says OECD official

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.

Pascal Saint-Amans, the director of the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration at the OECD told an Oireachtas sub-committee on global taxation that Ireland did not meet any of the criteria of a tax haven.

“The answer is very simple, Ireland is not a tax haven,” he said in a live link-up between the Oireachtas members and his Paris office. He said Ireland has one of the lowest corporate tax rates among western countries, but in the view of the OECD “this is fair tax competition”.