So acting as a tax haven was not enough, they also have to undermine every other EU regulation to keep their cash cows happy? Can't we just kick them out already?
I'd say in that case, the regulation was resilient enough to bring the case to fruition (although this is an argument that facebook will use to defend itself).
Hopefully this will motivate the DPC to be a little more active in the future (nobody likes to be wrong, especially wrong in public).
Some DPA are unwilling to act, the best thing to make them is to file complaint or support organisations that do (see the comment on NOYB). They are bound by laws to act, let's make them !
Only 8 of around 40 DPAs that were involved in the process disagreed with the Irish DPC's conclusion according to TFA, so I don't think it's fully fair to lay the blame solely on Ireland here.
I think you'd have a hard time demonstrating that Ireland actually is a tax haven. I've heard that accusation from several sources, but never anything convincing.
As for undermining regulations, the EU has procedures for ensuring member states enact compliant legislation, and after that the country has its own legal system, not more corrupt than average. It might be that they're applying the law as they understand it and that the judiciary has some independence from commercial interests.
You're welcome to make the case otherwise, but making accusations as you've done isn't what I'd consider constructive dialogue.
The EU insisted on Apple paying billions to the irish government that the irish government fought not to get. Irish-Dutch sandwich is a term designating the practice of using a tax loophole that lets big corporations avoid paying taxes.
Honestly, I'm not sure that the time to prove Ireland tax heaven will be that tough. Of course, the EU does not designate Ireland as a tax heaven, but you should have to keep in mind that Ireland is a member state of the EU and the tax heaven list is approved with unanimous vote which might be a cause for a conflict of interests.
Clarification. The EU asked the Irish Government to collect taxes that it declared were unpaid. It would then decide which countries were owed which chunk or the unpaid tax (all tax was declared through Ireland but sales were not solely in Ireland. So the tax was to be redistributed to the origin of sales). The issue with the judgement, and the reason the Irish Government were fighting it, was the ruling stated Ireland breached the law and provided an unfair advantage to one company. The Government were arguing that every company could avail of the same tax rules so it was not an unfair advantage / subsidy.
As for being a tax haven, this is something that is said by others who are outside of the Irish tax system and only look at the low corporate tax (they fail to see they other hidden taxes businesses have to pay like water tax, bin tax etc). Im not suggesting that the companies are fully "paying their way" but that it is too simplistic to only look at 1 tax requirement.
If you have worked in Ireland you would understand that the Irish tax system is extremely complex.....as employee you could pay tax in 3 separate income tax calculations, then a "bank bailout tax" that has remained even though the banks were bailed out. It is not uncommon for middle / high income workers to pay approx. 50% of their wage in deductions. Similarly if you tried to set up a company you would understand that the rules are not black and white but rather "you apply this tax calculation on a Friday, if the moon is full and the grass is blowing to the west"
You don't seem to understand what a tax haven is. It's not that domestic people don't pay taxes, or that there is no income tax, or payroll tax.
It's that corporate profits can be artificially shifted there and are then not or barely taxed.
Just read the wikipedia article please:
> Ireland ranks in all non-political "tax haven lists" going back to the first lists in 1994,[n][30] and features in all "proxy tests" for tax havens and "quantitative measures" of tax havens. The level of base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) by U.S. multinationals in Ireland is so large,[4] that in 2017 the Central Bank of Ireland abandoned GDP/GNP as a statistic to replace it with Modified gross national income (GNI*).[104][105] Economists note that Ireland's distorted GDP is now distorting the EU's aggregate GDP,[106] and has artificially inflated the trade-deficit between the EU and the US.
In all fairness:
The Dutch sandwich has been illigal for years now
The fine related to 'state aid' in the form of advice to Apple, and was appealed as the Exchequer makes far more money from Apple and other big tech then this fine would ever cover.
Have a look at the effective tax rates between Ireland and France if you want an eye opener
According to the OECD [1],France has an effective average corporate tax rate of 29.4% while Ireland has a 12.4% one. France has one of the highest in the OECD and Ireland one of the lowest. Unless you are arguing that Ireland is indeed effectively a tax haven, I don't see the eye opener.
> Ireland's base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tools give some foreign corporates Effective tax rates of 0% to 2.5% on global profits re-routed to Ireland via their tax treaty network.
Sure. We're undermining every EU regulation. 100%. It's like a national Irish pastime! And the EU is a clique that can shun members at will, and Germany is a moral exemplar to us all.
Everyone benefits from the EU in different ways. But that Ireland is a tax haven is not exactly a shocking accusation. Ireland is actively lobbying against global minimum taxation rules, e.g.:
I'm not "shocked" by that accusation. I don't dispute the tax haven allegation, though we're likely to agree to the tax changes.
Here's a recent story from the meeting between the Irish and French leaders. The differing view on taxation is clearly there (though it's more that we're worried about a mandated EU premium on top of it, not that we're against a global minimum). But on every other key issue the French openly say we're working closely together. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/differences-over-co...
That's a fair distance from 'undermining every EU regulation'.
Why? The UK sent a letter invoking article 50 and after an extension they're out.
The UK is a third country and no more an EU member.
Leaving is very simple if you're willing to face the consequences.
And this is the true problem of the UKs exit. That they're neither willing to face the truth nor the fact that's it a third country now with all restrictions that come with that status.
You are suggesting that the consequences of leaving where well defined, upfront and the UK was simply not "willing to face the truth" - this is not true. The consequences of leaving were established, and negotiated after the invocation.
You should also take note of my comment below - there is no "they" wrt the UK, as the country was divided, and actively fighting over the issue - with some actively trying to prevent a brexit.
> You are suggesting that the consequences of leaving where well defined,
I'm not suggesting that at all. Actually I think that it was enormous stupidity to send that letter before England even defined what it wanted exactly.
It didn't help at all that Ms. May tried to appease the Brexit extremists in the conservative party. People that, as we now know , cannot be appeased, ever, since they just move the goal post to an even more extreme position.
> You should also take note of my comment below - there is no "they" wrt the UK, as the country was divided, and actively fighting over the issue - with some actively trying to prevent a brexit.
I appreciate that. Nevertheless 52% of people that bothered to vote wanted out.
Pissing off their European partners at every turn also certainly doesn't help
Unless Britain gives up it's extremist position I predict a world of hurt once the EU is no more willing to kick the can further down the road.
Long queues at immigration, when vacationing in Spain will be the least of your worries.
From a trade perspective, Northern Ireland is treated as part of the EU at the moment. This allows the Irish border to remain open, as there's no feasible way of enforcing it otherwise. For some context: The European union as a whole has 137 border crossings with third countries to its east. The Irish-Northern Irish border has 275.
Northern Ireland is still saying its goodbyes and looking for its jacket. And even GB is still caught up in hundreds of temporary exemptions and is in many senses operating as part of Europe.
Northern Ireland is still abiding by EU free movement of goods rules and EU Customs Union rules, and goods from the rest of the UK are inspected when they get to Northern Ireland.
Can you be more specific? As far as I can tell, the difficulties with Brexit are entirely self-inflicted, as a consequence of poor planning and self-contradictory goals.
The UK wanted to leave the EU and the common market. That means a border. That much has always been clear. That's basically the whole point of the common market.
The UK also doesn't want a border between Ireland and Northern Ireland but that's stricly an issue between the Republic of Ireland and the UK. Obviously as Ireland is a member and the EU is a constructive and diplomatically open entity, it was more than ready to negociate. Actually, multiple solutions have been proposed and at least one was tentivaly accepted before being reneged by the UK government.
I mean at some point in a negociation if the weak party can't come to its sense, you have to stop wasting everyone's time and tell them to get lost which is more or less what's happening with the UK.
The UK would have had to breach or at least seriously jeopardize the GFA to do so. An agreement they willingly signed up to. The UK brought that upon themselves.
Brexit doesn't, but the GFA was only possible because of the seamless border between the two countries. That lack-of-a-border can only exist if NI remains in the customs union. The rUK can only have a seamless border with NI if it's either in the customs union, or neither are. The UK decided the rUK didn't want to be in it. So now there's a border in the Irish sea.
> Threatening a return to violence in Ireland over Brexit is what I mean by "making things difficult".
Recognizing that putting in jeopardy an international agreement that brought an end to the troubles might incite violence, is not the same thing as threatening violence. It's common sense.
> The Troubles were not about sausage shipments between Belfast and Dublin.
You're right, they were an ethno-nationalist conflict, during which the British government sanctioned the murder of its own citizens, and now continues to protect those murderers from prosecution.
Hopefully this will motivate the DPC to be a little more active in the future (nobody likes to be wrong, especially wrong in public).
Some DPA are unwilling to act, the best thing to make them is to file complaint or support organisations that do (see the comment on NOYB). They are bound by laws to act, let's make them !