Ireland has been named among the world's worst corporate tax havens

IRELAND IS AMONG the worst corporate tax havens globally, according to new research by Oxfam.

Bermuda tops the organisation’s list of 15 countries, followed by the Cayman Islands and the Netherlands. Ireland is sixth on the list, behind Switzerland and Singapore.

“Ireland is part of a toxic global tax system servicing the very wealthiest while ordinary people pay the price and lose out on essential public services,” said Jim Clarken, CEO of Oxfam Ireland today.

“Around the world we are known as a country of good fun, bad weather and awful tax policies that facilitate worsening inequality by allowing some of the world’s richest companies to avoid paying their fair share to society. This is no badge of honour.”

Oxfam said Ireland’s score was based on its lack of effective rules to prevent corporate tax dodging and because it facilitates large-scale corporate tax avoidance through profit-shifting, aggressive tax planning structures and so-called sweetheart deals.

“From a national, European and international perspective, the game is up. Citizens everywhere have had enough,” Clarken said.

“We need to get serious about making companies pay the tax that’s due and we need transparency about where and how profits are made and where and how they are taxed. We collect more detailed data about farm animals in this country than we do about the tax affairs of multinationals.”

Finance Minister Michael Noonan

Denials

The government has denied that Ireland is a tax haven, with Department of Finance officials previously claiming that the country met none of the international standards that meant it was worthy of the tag.

Fora recently revealed that Ireland has been lobbying Brazil to have the country removed from its list of tax havens, although it was yet to receive a response to its overtures at the time.

“Ireland is fully compliant with all international best practices in the areas of tax transparency and exchange of information (and) has not been and will never will be a brass-plate location,” a Finance official said at the time.

However Oxfam’s Clarken said that changing Ireland’s tax rules would lessen the burden on individual tax payers and citizens, with more money to spend on health and education.

“Governments are falling over themselves to ensure corporations pay as little tax as they wish – and starving their countries of the money needed to education, healthcare and job creation in the process. They must ensure companies pay a fair amount of corporation tax, otherwise their citizens will continue to pay the price.”

Multinationals account for the vast majority of Ireland’s corporate tax haul, increases in which have been a significant driver for the country’s increasing overall tax take in recent years.

Meanwhile, the government is set to fight EU moves towards a so-called Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB). The European administration claims the measures will help ensure fairer rules around how companies calculate their profits and pay taxes for different jurisdictions.

Reporting by Michelle Hennessy and Peter Bodkin.