Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am glad that the country is proceeding, albeit slowly, in signing up to the BEPS process to an ever greater extent. It has long been known that the Netherlands tax regime in areas such as copyright earnings from music, etc., is far more favourable to taxpayers such as music groups which might have very significant earnings from royalties. It has been well known for many years that U2 transferred a significant portion of its activities to the Netherlands because of the favourable tax regime. Has this situation been mitigated through the agreement? Is it still advantageous for groups such as U2 to use the Netherlands extensively?

On countries which may have avoidance or reduction mechanisms built into their systems to attract investment and so on, a great deal of material published online via Wikileaks and the Panama papers which was published by an international consortium of journalists disclosed significant international tax avoidance by very wealthy individuals, banks and so on in various countries.

What has Revenue done to examine the situation of persons or corporations of significant wealth who may have been identified or related to some of these information dumps about tax avoidance?

Does the Minister have a view on how our tax structures compare with those of Switzerland and the Netherlands? There is obviously significant competition for international investment and such but I think that most people, including in Ireland, want to see corporations and wealthy individuals paying their fair share of tax. I do not think that is happening in a complete way yet. How are tax authorities in different jurisdictions co-operating? Much of the base erosion and profit shifting, BEPS, process is the publication and sharing of information and data. Will the Minister share what has happened in this field that may mean that very wealthy individuals and corporations do not have the same arrangements available to cancel their tax payments entirely? We saw one case mentioned prominently in the papers today about arrangements related to Luxembourg, although we are not talking about it today. Effectively, by off-shoring property and other assets from Ireland, those involved could reduce their tax bill significantly, especially corporate tax bills, though I do not know about personal tax liabilities. Much worrying information came through in the disclosures about tax avoidance. What have Revenue and the Department of Finance done to stop the Irish taxpayer from being taken for a ride?