Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to support the motion. There is much at stake in the debate, as Deputy O'Callaghan mentioned. Not just multinational enterprises, but every enterprise in the State depends on the certainty provided by tax law, the Revenue rulings underpinning it and the Revenue procedures that apply. Multinationals, which employ 350,000 people directly and indirectly, and every Irish business depend on the integrity of the Revenue Commissioners in the way that they apply the law.

In the ruling, Revenue stands accused of knowingly and unlawfully colluding to give one company an unfair advantage. This is false and unsustainable. The chairman of the Revenue Commissioners has stated emphatically that there was no departure from the application of Irish law by Revenue, no preference was shown in that application and the full tax due was paid in accordance with law. That is correct. At the time, Revenue's standard practice was to tax based on activities conducted in Ireland. This was the standard approach taken by every revenue authority in the world. It now stands accused by the Commission of not applying rules in respect of transfer pricing, for example, which are not even agreed now, never mind being in operation in 1991 or 2007. The Commission takes a similar view in respect of the way that companies and their various subsidiaries might be treated.

It is all very well and right to say that we should have a better tax regime to prevent overaggressive tax planning, but we must do that through the procedure established by the G20 and the OECD, namely, the BEPS procedure. Ireland has been a leading player in that regard and we are applying changes in our tax code each year to ensure that it is robust, that people are not aggressively exploiting it and that tax is related to substance in the country. This is the principle that the OECD has adopted.

The Commission's principles are different from the OECD's. It is taking the view that tax should be based on worldwide activity, and that tax officials in Ireland should become global policemen for all of the tax liabilities of a company. That was untenable in 1991 and 2007 and it remains untenable now. The staggering nature of this decision underlines why it must be appealed. The idea not only that Revenue should be the tax policeman for the whole world, but that taxes should be collected retrospectively based on what the Commission now feels ought to have been the laws and conventions at the time instead of what they actually were, is staggering in its implications for companies that invested in our country in good faith on the basis of our tax laws, the Revenue rulings that underpinned them and the procedures that Revenue applied.

The Revenue Commissioners have always defended their independence. They apply rules independently, a fact that has always been respected by the political process. Revenue is under attack and there are profound implications for companies that expect certainty concerning the tax regime. Some of them are investing €1 billion in plants. They expect that the Revenue rulings on which they have made those investments can be relied upon and that the Irish State will stand over those independent rulings and the tax law underpinning them. That is what we are doing by appealing.

The Commission has made a decision in which it has set itself up as the prosecutor, judge and executioner. Under European law, member states and individual companies such as Apple have a clear right to dispute such rulings. Many of the Commission's rulings of this nature have been overturned because they were without foundation in fact or in the applicable legislation. For companies, and, in particular, the IDA, which promotes Ireland as a location where there is tax certainty and a good business environment, the implications of not contesting this decision would be profound. I strongly support the decision to appeal.

The world is changing and we need to move our tax code, as we have been doing, to address instances in which companies can aggressively play Irish tax law against other countries' tax laws. While this issue needs to be addressed, it should not be dealt with by the Commission by targeting individual companies with unsustainable retrospective tax claims or going after individual countries. It must be done collaboratively, with countries working together through the OECD's agreed structures. This is what Ireland intends to do and we will continue to uphold strong standards in our Revenue Commissioners.

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