Dublin Wants “Healthy & Fair” Competition In Corporate Tax

Ireland will push for a global agreement on corporate taxation which “accommodates” its current low rate and allows “healthy and fair tax competition”, the country’s finance minister Paschal Donohoe said on Wednesday, April 21.

The remarks by Donohoe, who chairs the eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, indicate that Ireland expects to clash with the US over President Joe Biden’s ambition to introduce a global minimum corporate tax rate.  Biden’s proposals, which emerged earlier this month, pledged to “end the race to the bottom over multinational corporate taxation.”

That left countries with low corporate tax rates, including Ireland, bracing for a struggle. Ireland charges a corporate tax rate of 12.5%, one of the lowest in Europe. 

The Biden administration wants companies to be subject to a global minimum rate of 21%; the European Commission has stated it would favor an as-yet unspecified minimum.

Refundit, which was co-founded by Israeli serial entrepreneur Uri Levine, claims that Global Blue’s success is partly because it has a dominant position in the market. In its complaint, it has asked the European Commission to intervene and bring Global Blue’s alleged anti-competitive conduct to an end.

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