Mr. Gary Tobin:

That might allow more questions from members.

Let me refer to the White Paper on Ireland's accession to the European Economic Community, published the year I was born. It states on page 23 that the Community also intends to introduce a uniform system for the taxation of companies but has not yet worked out proposals on the subject. That such a uniform system is still not in place some 40 years later perhaps demonstrates the practical and difficult obstacles that would have to be overcome to put it into place.

CCCTB would introduce new common rules for calculating and allocating company taxation across the European Union. It would involve a new sharing mechanism, essentially a rule of thumb that proposes that the individual taxable profit base of each company within an international group would be aggregated or pooled to form a consolidated tax base. That consolidated base would be re-attributed to those same companies based on their presence in any member state, that presence being measured by a formula accounting for the scale of assets, the number of employees, payroll costs and sales in any member state by comparison with those of the group as a whole. Each member state's share of the profits would then be taxed at national tax rates, thereby preserving national sovereignty over the rate of taxation.

Ireland's position on the CCCTB is well known. We are sceptical about it. Nonetheless, our key message is that Ireland, while being totally opposed to tax harmonisation, as with a number of member states, is willing to engage with the Commission and other member states on the issue. We believe the best way to influence the discussions is by being in the room at the time. Therefore, the stated policy of the Government is to engage constructively with other member states on the issue.

The CCCTB is currently the subject of discussions within a Council working group. It is probably safe to say the discussions of that group are moving quite slowly.

As for next steps, it is the intention of the Irish Presidency to continue the work of the Council working group on the proposal. The engagement with the common consolidated corporate tax base, CCCTB, is ongoing and examination of this complex proposal still is at a relatively early stage. There are many technical and practical issues yet to be resolved.