A NEW REPORT on the tax paid by multinationals in Ireland has sparked a row over the effective tax rate on big companies.
Professor Jim Stewart of Trinity College based his report on figures from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, finding that US multinationals in Ireland paid an effective tax of 2.2 per cent.
That is far lower than the 11.9 per cent quoted by the Taoiseach at an event in Paris last week.
Kenny’s figures were based on a PWC/World Bank report, but Stewart said those findings were not reliable.
He criticised the report’s use of a single company for a host of countries across the world, telling RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that the PWC report was based on a “fictitious or hypothetical” company, adding:
You can’t say we have an effective tax rate of 11.9 per cent.
Fergal O’Rourke from PWC, however, defended his company’s findings, saying that Stewart was counting companies incorporated in Ireland, but that had never operated here.
“There’s a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in the data.
To quote the Duke of Wellington: To be born in a stable doesn’t make you a horse.
“You’re counting profits that have nothing to do with Ireland.”
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