“Ireland said on Tuesday it planned to shut down a much-criticized tax arrangement used by Apple Inc to shelter over $40 billion from taxation – but will leave open an even bigger loophole that means the computer giant is unlikely to pay any more tax,” Tom Bergin and Padraic Halpin report for Reuters.
“A U.S. Senate committee investigation revealed in May that Apple had cut billions from its tax bill by declaring companies registered in the Irish city of Cork as not tax resident in any country,” Bergin and Halpin report. “Irish leaders protested angrily against the committee’s characterization of Ireland as a facilitator of tax avoidance. Parliamentary hearings were subsequently held to review Ireland’s tax rules amid concerns that damage to its reputation could jeopardize the foreign investment on which its economy relies heavily.”
“Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said on Tuesday that he planned to make it illegal for a company registered in Ireland to have no tax domicile anywhere,” Bergin and Halpin report. “He added that companies could still nominate any country they liked as their tax residence, including zero tax jurisdictions such as Bermuda – a provision that tax advisers said was unusual internationally.
Bergin and Halpin report, “Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at the London-based global accountancy body ACCA, said this meant the changes were unlikely to mean higher tax bills for companies that use Irish subsidiaries to minimize taxes. ‘It won’t make that much difference,’ he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
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If the American IRS ever comes to Ireland I swear by almighty god that I will smash my Irish fist into their numbskulls. You can buy me a beer afterwards.
By the way over here in Ireland we like our Guinness, we do. So you can stand me a pint of the best Irish nectar when you see me in Tipperary. Top of the afternoon to you Yankee Doodles. I’ll play a tune on my fife for you too. .
… this? “Apple had cut billions from its tax bill by declaring companies registered in the Irish city of Cork as …” How did Apple get away with redefining the tax laws of Ireland?
Failte, Seamus, to the land where the ignorant and the fool argue over which is least correct.
Ah, yes. Ireland is that tax haven that brings in corporations from around the globe. That’s why they’ve never needed a bailout from the other members of the EU. Oh, wait a second. Ireland is back in recession for the first time since its 2010 bailout, official figures have confirmed.
Really?
Of what business is it to any country, how (or if) any individual or business entity adheres to another country’s tax code?
What justifies this kind of international intrusive nosiness?
Um, let me guess……their relationship with said country!!! These kind of developments are kind of transparent don’t you think.
Also reported on Reuters: Irish unemployment in September 2013 inched down to 13.4%.
One should pity the poor citizens of Ireland who must take solace in beer and whiskey as their government representatives allow international corporate welfare, but the citizens of the nation receive paltry benefits from the tax arrangements and no significant employment opportunities from these company shell games.
We’re sorry, Seamus, that you don’t see the injustice of your plight as self-serving corporatocracy runs roughshod over our planet.
(It should be noted, to pre-empt the extreme partisans of the USA, that under “socialist” “Obama Messiah”, the current unemployment rate of the USA is 7.3%, with the worst state Nevada registering in at 9.5%. — significantly improved from the unemployment peak of 9.8% that occurred directly after the crash of 2008, which can largely be attributed to 8 years of laissez-faire economic policy and a lax money policy feeding ill-regulated investment banking schemes and dramatically acceletated corporate outsourcing.)
When only the U3 number is the only thing the left wants to admit to…
The U6 *WAS* the standard… until Clinton separated the statistics.
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/print.pl/news.release/empsit.t15.htm