Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Joint Sub-Committee on Global Corporate Taxation

Ireland's Corporate Tax System: Discussion

5:00 pm

Mr. Sorley McCaughey:

I wish to make two quick points. First, we have not talked enough about the brass-plate companies that are operational in Ireland. They are the ones that are, in part, skewing the figures. They are damaging our reputation and giving us a false impression of how productive Irish workers are.

My second point is about country-by-country reporting. We could go ahead and do that in the morning. Other countries, including France, Norway and Finland, have all made varying degrees of commitment to introduce country-by-country reporting. We could do it as part of the OECD's working party No. 6, which is looking at a template for country by country reporting. At the moment there is nothing to suggest a need for confidentiality in that template, so that when Ireland looks to enact legislation as a result of the BEPS process, they can introduce a requirement for that information to be public. There is absolutely nothing stopping us. We can do it as part of the OECD's BEPS process or we can introduce legislation to make it a requirement unilaterally.