Tax Haven Ireland

Kieran Allen, Brian OBoyle

Description

This is the story of how a small island on the edge of Europe became one of the world’s major tax havens. From global corporations such as Apple and Google, to investment bankers and mainstream politicians, those taking advantage of Ireland’s pro-business tax laws and shadow banking system have amassed untold riches at enormous social cost to ordinary people at home and abroad.

Tax Haven Ireland uncovers the central players in this process and exposes the coverups employed by the Irish state, with the help of accountants, lawyers and financial services companies. From the lucrative internet porn industry to corruption in the property market, this issue distorts the economy across the state and in the wider international system, and its history runs deep, going back the country’s origins as a British colonial outpost.

Today, in the wake of Brexit and in the shadow of yet another economic crash, what can be done to prevent such dangerous behaviour and reorganise our economies to invest in the people? Can Ireland – and all of us – build an alternative economy based on fairness and democratic values?

1. Porn, Tax Dodging and Exploitation

2. Global Plunder

3. Making Treasure Ireland

4. Dirty Secrets

5. The Fixers

6. The Irish Financial Services Centre

7. Foreign Direct Avoiders

8. The Vultures Have Landed

9. The Case for the Defence

10. How Tax Dodging Harms Irish Society

Sujets

• Economic Policy
• Public Policy
• Political Process
• Economic History
• Public Finance
• Taxation
• Banking
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Economie gestion
• Bank
• Economy of the Republic of Ireland
• General officer
• Ireland
• Political corruption
• Political economy
• Celtic Tiger
• Tax
• Economics
• Capitalism
• Stephen Ireland
• Imposition (fiscalité)
• Business
• LAW
• General
• International Financial Services Centre
• Banks

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780745345338
• Langue: English

Extrait

Tax Haven Ireland
An extremely important, and possibly the best, book to have been written about one of the world s biggest and most dangerous tax havens. It skewers the self-serving myths of crooked Irish elites to show how going down the tax haven route not only inflicts harm on other countries - it hurts its own population too.
Nicholas Shaxson, author Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World
Excellent insights and analysis showing how corporations and the rich are addicted to tax avoidance to the detriment of normal people. Informative and enjoyable to read.
Prem Sikka, University of Sheffield
An important book - it exposes industrial scale tax avoidance being organised by the Irish elites and enjoyed by the world s major corporations. It blends detailed research with impressive insight. It deserves a wide readership.
Richard Boyd Barrett TD, People Before Profit
An important book that deserves a wide readership. The claims that Ireland is a tax haven have been growing over recent years. This book adds important evidence to the claim and makes a passionate call for a more equal society.
Professor Eoin Reeves, University of Limerick
A policy of consistent denial by the government, along with lazy media treatment of the issue, has meant that Ireland s status as a tax haven is an ongoing controversy. This book goes a long way in resolving this argument.
Terrence McDonough, Emeritus Professor of Economics, NUI Galway
A must read for anyone interested in understanding how global capitalism works in the twenty-first century.
Dr Stewart Smyth, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham

First published 2021 by Pluto Press
New Wing, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright Brian O Boyle and Kieran Allen 2021
The right of Brian O Boyle and Kieran Allen to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 19 88.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 4532 1 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 4531 4 Paperback
ISBN 978 0 7453 4535 2 PDF
ISBN 978 0 7453 4533 8 EPUB
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Contents
Figures and Tables
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Porn, Tax Dodging and Exploitation
2. Global Plunder
3. Making Treasure Ireland
4. Dirty Secrets
5. The Fixers
6. The Irish Financial Services Centre
7. Foreign Direct Avoiders
8. The Vultures Have Landed
9. The Case for the Defence
10. The Social Costs
Postscript
Notes
Index
Figures and Tables
FIGURES
4.1 The Share of Profits Made Abroad in US Corporate Profits
TABLES
1.1 Domicile Levy by Year and Amount Paid 2010-16
3.1 Public and Private Housing Output and Public Housing Sold to Tenants 1920s-2007
3.2 Selected Sectoral Breakdown of Non-Financial Corporation Loans 1999 and 2008
4.1 Gap between Gross Trading Profits and Total Taxable Income in Recent Years (billions)
4.2 Total Taxable Income 2018 (billions)
4.3 Typical Abuses of Transfer Pricing
4.4 Calculation of Total Taxable Income Figure
4.5 Corporation Tax Receipts 2011-18 (millions)
5.1 Payments by Revenue Commissioners to Law Firms 2012-17
5.2 Payments ( ) by NAMA to Law Firms 2012-17
5.3 Total Fees from Central Bank to the Big Four Accountancy Firms 2012-17
5.4 Pro-bono Work Undertaken by the Main Accountancy Firms for the Department of Finance 2008-15
7.1 US Multinational Tax Haven Subsidiaries
7.2 US Direct Investment into Ireland for 2009-19
7.3 US Investment (millions, ) for 2008-2018
7.4 Gross Profits, Pre-tax Profits and Percentage of Taxation on US Social Media Corporations in Ireland 2017
9.1 Measures for the effective tax rate for 2012 ranging from 2.2 per cent to 15.5 per cent
9.2 Calculation of Total Taxable Income Figure
10.1 Taxation on Personal Income from Central Government - Thresholds and Tax Rates
Abbreviations
CGT
Capital Gains Tax
CSO
Central Statistics Office
CRO
Companies Registration Office
CFC
Controlled Foreign Company
CPT
Corporation Profit Tax
DIRT
Deposit Interest Retention Tax
DTT
Double Taxation Treaty
ECJ
European Court of Justice
FDI
Foreign Direct Investment
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
GNP
Gross National Product
HNWI
High-Net-Worth Individuals
IFSC
International Financial Services Centre
LDCs
Least Developed Countries
SIPC
Securities Investor Protection Corporation
SPV
Special Purpose Vehicle TNC Transnational Corporation
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the support and advice of a number of people. Richard Boyd Barrett, Alex Callinicos, Rachel Farrell, Terrence McDonough, Eoin Reeves and Stewart Smyth each read drafts of the document and offered important suggestions to improve the text. Stewart also asked a number of his colleagues to look over the book from a radical accountancy perspective. Cillian Doyle offered us important advice on the nature of Russian money flowing through the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). He also read the book and gave insightful comments.
Prem Sikka read the book in draft form and was kind enough to send a number of important details about the role of the big four accountancy firms in the tax avoidance network. Nick Shaxson s work was an inspiration for much of what we wrote in Chapter 2 and he gave us important encouragement when the book was nearing completion. We also benefitted from employees of law and accountancy firms who spoke to us on condition of anonymity. Collectively, these people improved our book and none are responsible for any errors that remain.
Beyond these direct supports, the book benefitted from the work of a number of specialists in the area, including Richard Brooks, Christian Chavagneux, John Christensen, Emma Clancy, Sheila Killian, Richard Murphy, Ronan Palan, Jim Stewart and Gabriel Zucman. A number of these researchers have connections to the Tax Justice Network, which has been an invaluable resource in writing this book. We have also benefitted from the work of Oxfam, Christian Aid and a number of important anonymous entries to Wikipedia.
No book is possible without the support of those we love. In this context, Brian would like to thank his partner, Emma Hendrick. Her patience and support were not only invaluable in the completion of this book, they were essential in a project that took many more hours than was first expected. Brian would also like to thank his daughter, Keela, who brought joy to the house and helped keep him sane when down the rabbit hole of tax evasion. Finally, Brian would like to pay tribute to his mother, Deirdre, who tragically took her own life in 2018. Deirdre was a bright light in a world that is all too often dark. Her example inspired Brian to fight for a better world and her own struggles were bound up with the injustices that are laid out in this work. It is to her memory that Brian dedicates his part of the book. Kieran Allen would like thank Annette Mooney for her patience and forbearance while this research was carried out. His section of the book is dedicated to her.
As this book was being finalised, the authors received news that Terry McDonough had passed away. Terry was a longstanding comrade of the authors and an important presence on the Irish left. He will be greatly missed
Introduction
In 2015, researchers investigating global tax evasion made a shocking discovery. Ireland, with less than 0.1 per cent of the world s population had become the biggest tax haven on the planet. The route to this discovery, made by Thomas R. T rsl v and his colleagues, lay in discrepancies in how corporate profits were being declared across different jurisdictions. 1 Ordinarily, businesses declare profits between 30 to 40 per cent of their wage bill, but for Ireland the declared ratio was closer to 800 per cent. A year later, official data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) further corroborated these findings, showing that each employee in large manufacturing firms was responsible for 687,000 in gross added value, or nearly 30 times more than would be expected. 2 This could only be explained in one of two ways - either these workers were hired for their superhuman capacities, or their employers were funnelling profits made by foreign workers through the Irish taxation system. When they tackle this question at all, the Irish elites strongly argue that the first explanation is the correct one. According to their narrative, Ireland is now a high-technology, high-value economy, often targeted for unfair criticism by those who have been less successful in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI).
It is our contention that this narrative is strategically deployed by government ministers, tax planners and economists to create cover for tax avoidance on an industrial scale. Each year, foreign companies send about 100 billion of profits through the Irish tax code for no other reason than to avoid their taxes. This is more than three times the amount needed to eradicate global hunger and the evidence that reveals it is hiding in plain sight in official statistics. Despite this, however, there is not yet a full-length book detailing the historical development, the internal mechanics and the social consequences of Tax Haven Ireland. This book was written to close that gap.
The first chapter introduces readers to some of the less savoury aspects of the Irish tax haven, as we explain why the world s biggest pornography company relocated to Dublin and detail how Irish high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and domestic companies avoid their taxes. Once this is done, in Chapter 2 we move on to explain the inner workings of the international tax evasion network, linking it to key turning points in the development of twentieth-century capitalism - particularly the decline of th