Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A country must meet all five criteria of the definition to be a tax haven. For clarity, the OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, does not see any jurisdiction in the world as a tax haven. The reason I make this point is that the accusation made by the US Senate committee was that we share the space with Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. One of those jurisdictions has over 150,000 registered companies at one address. We also know the US has over 200,000 companies at the one address. Sometimes one has the pot calling the kettle black.

The definition of a tax haven is outdated. We have seen multinational companies change but the OECD has not. In the US Senate Committee there has been a focus on one multinational company operating in this jurisdiction. The report correctly identified the discrepancy between domestic law here and in the United States. What effect would the implementation of the recommendations have on that Irish incorporated multinational company which is a non-tax resident both here and in the United States? It has not paid any tax on income of €70 billion over the past three years.

This report has happened as a result of political pressure within certain member states which were going to go alone which could have created double taxation issues. In the event of no consensus on these issues being reached, is it possible for Ireland to take on some of these issues on its own? For example, in 1998, the Department of Finance looked at a report on incorporated multinational companies which were not controlled here and were, accordingly non-tax resident, but deemed them automatically to be due to their incorporation to be tax resident here if they had no other interest in the State. This change was made to the Finance Act 15 years ago which exempted multinational companies referred to at the United States Senate hearings. Could we go it alone and make a company not paying tax in any jurisdiction but which is incorporated here a tax resident?