Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I direct my first couple of questions to the Irish Taxation Institute on the structures of Irish taxation and tax practice. Does the institute consider that there is sufficient infrastructure in terms of tax analysis and the identification of who pays taxes and at what rates? I do not know whether the institute adopts policy positions, but does it consider it to be inherently wrong that a company which earns €500,000 a year over a five or ten year period, for example, should pay, in certain instances, no tax at all? What is the institute's view of the application of a minimum effective corporation tax rate? While it would start at a relatively low level, it would, over a period of time, cut out the scandal of very profitable companies paying little or no tax.

I am also concerned in principle about the following. In the context of discussions with the OECD and the EU, has it been possible to give any consideration to what will happen as there is greater robotic development in IT and IT-related industries, thereby reducing the need for labour? Even in a country like Ireland, the potential exists that the tax flow from taxes on labour will be significantly reduced. Robotic development has the potential to produce greater inequality in the sense that certain people will be concentrated in potentially very high paying positions along with investors and the owners of companies in the sector while on the other hand there will be many more people, not just in developing countries but across the globe, working in much lower remunerated positions, whether those are care positions, casual positions or whatever. Without some effort to create a fairer approach to identifying appropriate, fair and equitable taxation, we will end up with greater inequality, in particular in developing countries which produce a lot of raw materials, but also in countries like Ireland.

I am particularly concerned that the tax infrastructure in Ireland, in terms of analysis at public policy level, is very weak. We do not really have data on clusters. The data would have to be largely anonymised but we could probably guess the identities of some of the bigger companies. In the context of fairness and equity, the best way to find out about tax is to look for indicative amounts. This is a similar approach to that taken for individuals in the tax code. What kind of tax do people who earn over €100,000, €200,000 and €300,000 pay compared with people €50,000 or less? The answer to that provides a fairly good picture of what the relative contributions are and whether those contributions are fair. We do not have any data development in Ireland which would help us to do that. Given that the institute is involved in training and accrediting future generations of people who are developing expertise in taxation, will our guests indicate what overall ethical framework is in operation? The long-standing principles of taxation are fairness, efficiency, equitability, knowability and that it is based in law. These principles are to be applied to all people, not just some.