Dr. Aidan Regan:

The European Commission wants to go further than BEPS because it wants a unitary approach which is in recognition that firms are transnational and can move across jurisdictions. We have just been talking about cross-border capital flows, the extent of inter-country and inter-firm linkages and the supply chain. The idea that firms could be split up in different ways benefits the firm. From a political perspective, the Commission wants to identify the overall revenue, income and profit that are taxable. It would like to see it done through a common base. In that sense, the common consolidated corporate tax base is very different to the OECD proposal. It is not surprising that industry is supportive of the OECD proposal but not supportive of the common consolidated corporate tax base. Most research suggests that EU citizens, for the most part, are very supportive of it. It has become a highly salient political issue across European Union countries that certain small, open economies are effectively facilitating firms to avoid paying taxes in their countries where labour income tax is increasing. We often forget that in Ireland. The Deputy is right that Ireland is not alone in its opposition. There are other countries with similar regulatory tax environments that facilitate corporate tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning such as the Netherlands, Luxembourg and to a certain extent Denmark and the Baltic states, which have a different approach. They will simultaneously oppose this.