There were no special corporation tax rate deals for any multinational companies in Ireland, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore told the Dáil.
“The tax rate, which is established in law, applies evenly to all companies,” he said. “It is 12.5 per cent on the trading profits in Ireland and 25 per cent on non-trading income.”
Mr Gilmore said an issue arose because of the differences in the legal and tax systems between countries and Ireland had been working for some time to address the issues involved.
The Government, said Mr Gilmore, had been working at OECD and EU levels to examine the structures and consider how international rules could be implemented to ensure fair taxation levels.
The Tánaiste was responding to Sinn féin leader Gerry Adams who said Apple's CEO Tim Cooke had told a US Senate investigation that Apple Sales Ireland had paid an average corporation tax rate of just two per cent for the past 10 years. Another company, Apple Operations International, also based in Ireland, had an income of 30 billion euro between 2009 to 2012.
“I cannot imagine a local business getting away with this type of tax avoidance,” he added. “It is one law for big corporations, developers and bankers and another for small businesses and ordinary citizens.”
The Tánaiste, said Mr Adams, knew that the hundreds of millions of euro in lost revenue could have been used to get people back to work, but instead ordinary people must pay more taxes to make up the shortfall.
Later, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton said he wanted to repeat what the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance had said: there were no specific deals under the Irish tax code with any company.
“All the measures are enshrined in statute in the Finance Bill and are fully transparent,” Mr Bruton added. “There are no special negotiated rates.”
He said he would not speculate as to the situation in the past, but he suspected that in 1980, under export sales relief, there was a special sectoral scheme in the sense that exports did not attract tax at that stage.
Sinn Féin spokesman Peadar Tóibín said Ireland was regarded internationally as a tax haven by gaining competitive advantage in foreign direct investment on the basis of a very low tax base. It was suggested that Ireland’s reputation was damaged. Mr Bruton said Mr Tóibín’s remarks surprised him. “I should not need to tell any member of the Oireachtas that there were no deals in our tax regime,” he added.
