> It's always been a derelection of duty of governments when these loopholes exist in the first place. So it's great news that with enough publicity, democratically elected lawmakers felt the pressure from voters to fix this.
This sort of rhetoric does not help. Tax law is very logical, and these "loopholes" are often quite intentional and have a rational basis. Here, for example, the "double Irish" takes advantage of Irish tax provisions that encourage companies to relocate not only IP, but skilled workers to Ireland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_tax_in_the_Republi...
> Ireland's corporate BEPS tools emphasise job creation (either of Irish employees or of foreign employees to Ireland). To use Irish BEPS tools, and their ETRs of 0–2.5%, the multinational must meet conditions on the intellectual property ("IP") they will be using as part of their Irish BEPS tool. This is outlined in the Irish Finance Acts particular to each scheme, but in summary, the multinational must:
> Prove they are carrying out a "relevant trade" on the IP in Ireland (i.e. Ireland is not just an "empty shell" through which IP passes en route to another tax haven);
> Prove the level of Irish employment doing the "relevant activities" on the IP is consistent with the Irish tax relief being claimed (the ratio has never been disclosed);
> Show that the average wages of the Irish employees are consistent with such a "relevant trade" (i.e. must be "high-value" jobs earning +€60,000–€90,000 per annum);
One should hope most rules in Ireland are in touch with reality. You might ahve just given an example of that. The Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich is/was certainly not one of those...
There is no basis in reality for this entire construction. No OECD rules based arm's length, no proper transfer pricing, to defend this siphoning off billions of profits to offshore shells.
This sort of rhetoric does not help. Tax law is very logical, and these "loopholes" are often quite intentional and have a rational basis. Here, for example, the "double Irish" takes advantage of Irish tax provisions that encourage companies to relocate not only IP, but skilled workers to Ireland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_tax_in_the_Republi...
> Ireland's corporate BEPS tools emphasise job creation (either of Irish employees or of foreign employees to Ireland). To use Irish BEPS tools, and their ETRs of 0–2.5%, the multinational must meet conditions on the intellectual property ("IP") they will be using as part of their Irish BEPS tool. This is outlined in the Irish Finance Acts particular to each scheme, but in summary, the multinational must:
> Prove they are carrying out a "relevant trade" on the IP in Ireland (i.e. Ireland is not just an "empty shell" through which IP passes en route to another tax haven);
> Prove the level of Irish employment doing the "relevant activities" on the IP is consistent with the Irish tax relief being claimed (the ratio has never been disclosed);
> Show that the average wages of the Irish employees are consistent with such a "relevant trade" (i.e. must be "high-value" jobs earning +€60,000–€90,000 per annum);