Wall Street Journal zeros in on Ireland’s tax boom ‘thanks to Uncle Sam’

Ireland’s corporate tax boom featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, as the newspaper reported on how US giants like Apple, Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft and Pfizer have increasingly shifted profits to units in the Republic amid global drive to move activities away from offshore locations like the Cayman Islands.
The news feature, which began on the front page but continued inside, does not contain much by way of fresh reporting. But it gives a rundown how the State is splashing cash on the likes of “what might become the world’s most expensive children’s hospital”, new motorways, flood defences, the now-notorious bike €336,000 shed outside Leinster House, and the budget move to spend €9 million on locked phone pouches in secondary schools.
It highlights how US and EU efforts to change laws to put pressure on corporates to move profits from offshore tax havens and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development-led (OECD) agreement on the introduction of a 15 per cent minimum tax rate have “counter-intuitively” turned out great for the Republic. The Government sees corporate tax receipts topping €37 billion this year, up from €4.6 billion a decade ago.
The news piece also reports how Irish politicians are choosing the look the other way for now as Donald Trump’s election victory in the US raises questions about whether the Irish corporate tax boom will continue.
Continuing on the corporate tax theme, the Business Post leads with a story highlighting that when windfall company taxes are stripped out of the spending plans of the Republic’s main parties in their election manifestos, each faces a gaping budget hole
The reports puts the gap over the lifetime of the next government at €56 billion for Fine Gael, €55 billion for Fianna Fáil and “a whopping” €85 million for Sinn Féin.
The figures highlight the extent to which the three main parties, which are each planning to run budget surpluses out to 2030, are basing their manifestos on windfall corporate taxes that could well disappear during the lifetime of the next Dáil.
The general election is set to be held on Friday. The latest poll, carried in the Sunday Independent and conducted by research firm Ireland Thinks, said that Fine Gael has the support of 22 per cent of voters, with Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil each on 20 per cent.
The Sunday Independent also chose to lead its business section with a news feature on Mr Trump’s election and how future trade tensions between the EU and US are the biggest threat facing the next Irish government.
The company behind property website Daft.ie and classified ads businesses DoneDeal.ie and Adverts.ie is close to being sold to UK private equity firm Apex Partners, the Sunday Times reports. The takeover target is called Distilled and is co-owned by brothers Eamonn and Brian Fallon and Norwegian company Adevinta, which itself is co-owned by private equity groups Blackstone and Permira.
The report said the company could achieve about €300 million, half the price suggested by Reuters when it first reported in September that Distilled had hired Barclays to advise on a sale.
Distilled was established in 2015 after the operations of Daft.ie and its sister company, Adverts.ie, were merged with Adevinta’s Donedeal.ie.
It is not clear whether the Fallons, who did not respond to a request for comment, plan to retain a stake in the business, the report added.
The Sunday Times also reports that Bord na Móna is in exclusive talks to sell its recycling business to Kerry-based waste company KWD Recycling for more than €55 million.
PwC was hired earlier this year to prepare the business, a landfill in Kildare known as the Drehid Waste Management Facility and a waste collection unit for sale. The Sunday Times said the parts, which have an estimated combined value of as much as €150 million, are being sold separately.
KWD was fined a total of €500,000 earlier this month after being convicted for breaching the limits of its waste licence at its recyclables storage facility near Killarney.
Dry recyclables which were meant to be stored indoors at the Killarney Waste Disposal facility at Aughacurreen, Killarney were being stored outdoors and there was run off to a neighbouring field, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found during inspection.
The EPA found that in 2013 and in 2014 as well as in 2015 and 2016, waste was accepted in excess of the annual limit of 40,000 tonnes. The Sunday Times highlighted that KWD had argued that it had to wait more than eight years to be granted with an increase in the tonnage it was allowed to collect.