Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

One of the greatest risks facing us in terms of our revenue sources is, as the Taoiseach acknowledged, our overdependence on corporation tax from multinationals. A small number of companies are producing a very significant chunk of the corporation tax collected, which also represents an increasingly large chunk of the overall tax take. Has the economic division looked at this issue? Do we know why, in the past two years in particular, the Department of Finance has been so inaccurate in its forecasting of the income stream from corporation tax?

On the digital tax issue, there may be no OECD solution and many individual countries are planning unilaterally to introduce such a tax. The UK announced in the previous budget the introduction of a 2% digital services tax. Spain and Italy are pursuing their own measure and France and Germany have proposed a levy from 2020. This is a tax on the turnover of multinationals. It is coming down the tracks and will either be introduced by agreement across the OECD, which it is hoped will be the case, or it will be done unilaterally. What is the thinking of the economic division on that matter?

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