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It’s official. The EU is going to take us to court over our failure to collect €13 billion from Apple.
Ireland has fought over the past few years to maintain its low corporation tax precisely because it wants to compete for inward investment against larger, aggressively successful countries. However, some people claim that the €13 billion is badly needed in our housing and health sectors.
We asked two commentators to debate the issue.
YES. IT COMES AS no surprise that the State has been referred to European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to attempt to retrieve the €13 billion it is owed by Apple.
The Irish government – and Apple – have consistently argued that Apple never had a “sweetheart” tax deal that other companies couldn’t also avail of, and so had no unfair advantage. Not only are both Apple and the Irish government appealing the European Commission’s ruling. In fact, our government is, incredibly, spending money to prevent having to accept the €13 billion. Some €100 million is being spent to set up an “escrow” holding account for tax owed to it by Apple.
So why bother with an appeal at all?
Why on earth would a government turn down €13 billion of, essentially, free money? The only possible explanation is that our government believes, simply by showing it is willing to charge corporations proper taxes, it is likely to lose the favour of many corporations operating here.
While many suffer the brunt of austerity, an elite few benefit from maintaining Ireland’s tax break status quo – the multinationals, the legal firms, the accounting firms and their Fine Gael cronies. Essentially, we are being held to ransom – charge us less tax, or we will leave.
And regardless of whether the tax breaks and loopholes Apple availed of were special treatment, or available to every multinational company, what is absolutely clear is that Apple paid well below the headline corporate tax rate in Ireland for decades.
It is only right that we the Irish people should now be compensated for that behaviour. The case should be read by our government as evidence that our country’s reliance on minimising the tax bill for mega-corporations is no longer – indeed never has been – a viable economic strategy.
What the government should be doing is taking the €13 billion to end that blackmail – by investing the money in building up decent, productive, indigenous industries, so we become less and less reliant on the likes of Apple. Alternatively, the government could use the €13 billion to tackle the housing crisis. The money would be sufficient to halve housing waiting lists if used to build 72,000 houses.
Unfortunately the government seems intent on pursuing an economic strategy purely based on bending the knee to large multinational firms. When the European Union and its institutions are criticising you for pursuing a strategy that is too pro-business, the game really is up.
Éilis Ryan is a councillor for the Workers’ Party in north inner city Dublin.
NO. THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S lawsuit against Ireland for failure to collect 13 billion Euros from Apple in back taxes must be seen in the context of the EU’s desire to harmonise corporate tax levels.
The head of the EU Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, is seeking to push through the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) plan. He wishes to implement this plan by qualified majority voting (QMV) rather than by the unanimous consent of all member states.
Loss of tax sovereignty would be disastrous
This loss of tax sovereignty would be disastrous for a small country like Ireland. Over 20% of people working in Ireland are directly or indirectly dependent on the presence of foreign firms. According to the think tank TASC, we are more dependent on foreign direct investment than any other European country and what attracts them to Ireland funnily isn’t our exorbitant housing costs or our embracing of alcohol abuse as a cultural norm, but is in fact our low corporate tax rate.
Employers group IBEC has also warned that should Ireland be forced to implement a common EU tax rate and revenue collection system the state could lose out on four billion euros of corporate taxes a year. Putting this in context, 4 billion Euros less in collected corporation tax in the real world would equate to a 27.4% reduction in the 14.6 billion health budget for 2017.
We live in a globalised world and right now our most valuable commodity is our workforce. If we want them to be able to stay in Ireland we need to maintain our competitive corporate tax rate otherwise we could end up reverting to the days when our biggest export was people. It surprises me that with the EU seeking corporate tax reform that could be so detrimental to the economic well being of Ireland that there is scant Euroscepticism here.
AR Devine is a writer and published author. He won the Orwell Prize in 2010 for his blog, “Working with the Underclass,” written under the nom de plume of Winston Smith.
What do you think? Should we take Apple’s money? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
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So healthcare workers should have to put their lives at risk when there has been a warning for people to stay indoors? I’m sorry, I don’t think so. Why didn’t the person try to organize family to come or else organize to go to a care facility for the said time? I’m sorry but people were instructed to stay indoors.
@Greeneyes17: I’m sorry but who said healthcare workers should put their lives at risk? I’m sorry but that’s a touch of a straw man.
@Greeneyes17: Well this comment shows your level of ignorance on the topic. First of all most of those people with care packages don’t have family or family close by. Second of all what care facility do you suggest ?,These don’t exist. There are nursing homes for elderly people which are usually are full with waiting lists to get in. There are no care facilities that people can just go to. No one expects people to travel when they can’t but measures have to be introduced for national weather emergencies. Temporary live in carers would be an answer but an expensive one. Bottom line is just not as simple as you say and you should stop blaming the disabled for not being able to look after themselves.
@Greeneyes17: you are missing the point care providers can avail of help from the civil defence and defence force to go to there client in a emergency when code red is declared when the weather is bad
@Catherine Sims: excellent Catherine you go and temporarily live in with a vulnerable client juring the next red weather event????????
The health services and army and Gardai did a great job. But the volunteers in the Civil Defence who are volunteers did a fantastic job, on their own time. Often forgotten.
@Porterkev: “volunteers in the civil degence who are volunteers”…. wow thanks for pointing that out
@Porterkev:
One ambulance had to be dug out 6 times
https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/father-son-ambulance-team-praise-14381478
You know what one of the problems was? Too many people didn’t believe it was going to happen. Look back at the Journal comments. This narrative that joe public knew more than the scientists and meteorologists who have studied these things for years, was common.
@Dermot Lane: The cold bite was always coming but there was an admitted real possibility of Storm Emma changing course a few days before coming to Ireland and diverting from the course of going over any part of Ireland at all.
@Shane Corry: people were saying met E had it wrong the evening it hit because it didn’t come at 4pm On the button
Plans should be put in place for those needing care like mentioned above and halls made available to those who need it.
Spending millions yearly on ploughs etc is not viable once in a decade weather.
@Pilib O Muiregan: Dont agree. A snow plough is just a truck that can be used for other purposes. Just bracket on front 2 hold v shaped piece os steel. snow tires not v expensive.
@gregory: in Warsaw they put ploughs on the front of the bin lorries when it’s snowing.
Im supported by clarecare twice a day. Clarecare told their workers to just go to emergency cases on thurs morning but many workets chose to stay at home. All services in Ennis and surrounding areas were fine up til about 6/7pm that eve. No one checked in on thursday no one checked in on friday Saturday or Sunday ie even a phone call.
There was no contingency plans what would have been really useful was phone contact with people who were vulnerable. Many had no one from Wed to Monday.
Conditions were too bad to travel on friday or Saturday but Alternative plans to check in with people would have been better.
The National Standard, even if this exists…, for burying water pipes underground needs to have the depth increased.
@gregory: there is a national standard but it was ignored during the boom. But it never got cold enough for pipes to freeze, this time.
I think the publicity for the emergency services is over done during the storm. There’s very good stories of great work no doubt but if you’re working in this area it’s just part of the job we don’t need to heap praise in them just pay them more where they should be.
1/2 What will become of people like my brother when they are forced out of their residential centres into dispersed housing in rural communities (where many roads were not even treated during this weather event)? Unlike the people with disabilities who were able to pick up the phone and ring Tom Clonan, my brother now 41, cannot speak, pick up a phone, dial a number, call for help, walk, feed or get himself a drink or change his own nappies – his intellectual age is 6 months to 1 year. Yet ‘disability advocates’ gung ho on independent living and wiping out ‘institutions’ insist even those with severe and profound needs should live an ‘ordinary life’ in an ‘ordinary place’ with ‘no special treatment’ – just because that’s what the majority of people with disabilities want for themselves.
A formal buddy system needs to be set up by HSE for all vulnerable persons where a designated person such as a neighbour can volunteer to check up if a carer doesn’t turn up it. It might simply mean making a quick phone call during the crisis or looking in for 10 minutes.
2/2 Once the HSE’s Time to Move On from Congregated Settings policy is fully implemented, the 76 residents who occupy ten houses (mainly large chalets) on my brother’s beautiful campus will be scattered here, there and everywhere in small houses of 3 or 4 with agency staff coming and going. Whereas during this storm they had a continuation of care thanks to a well staffed campus where nurses and carers could stay with them, in the future they will be in the very position those who contacted Tom Clonan were in this time around. Only unlike them, they won’t be able to call him or anyone. There are people with disabilities who fully rely on others for their survival – leaving cold food & drinks next to my brother’s bed would not work for the same reason it wouldn’t work with an infant.
No mention of other voluntary agencies that have been doing great work, the likes of Order of Malta, St Johns and Red cross, who mobilised vehicles and personnel all over the country during the bad weather! IT’s not just the civil defence you know!
Global warming causing Sudden Stratospheric Warming’s hasn’t really kicked off yet and when it does then these things will get more common and WORSE.
@Alois Irlmaier:
Please define “Global warming causing Sudden Stratospheric Warming’s” as even google struggle with that one.
I fully expect that the Gestapo will issue a curfew for a future weather event.
This will be the inaguration of the new Irish Communist State.
It is up to the government to make sure that there is enough of a supply of crack, mack, cocaine, heroin, alcohol etc for those who refuse shelter.
What a kip of a country, we are great for meddling in other peoples business but cant mind our own, I’m a pensioner &recently got a bill from my electric company for almost a thousand euros? I know I don’t owe that money as I live in a one bed apt & i’m seldom home, the bill was for eighty four days, The company are saying that I do owe the money so I asked them to prove to me that I owe them the money but they haven’t come back to me, My point is that there are a lot of unqualified people in jobs that they are not qualified to be in, In other words they are chancers, God help us & save us from the vultures
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