I don't think that the phrase "tax haven" is politically helpful since it is emotive, makes people defensive, and makes change less likely as a result. And it's important to recognise that Irish policies have changed in some respects in recent years. BUT...
...there is clearly a major problem here and Ireland needs to stop being defensive about it. Yes, things are happening at the OECD level, and Ireland is entitled to spread the word about that. Yes, there is plenty of hypocrisy in other countries and that is irritating.
The French IP regime, for example, is deemed harmful by the OECD, so no-one (or at least very few) are blameless here, implying that excessive moralism on their part risks being dismissed as hypocritical.
oecd.org/tax/beps/updat…
oecd.org/tax/beps/updat…
But we urgently need international cooperation to stop a race to the bottom on corporate taxes. Not just to protect social services and the interests of workers, either.
We have seen recently that globalization is as much a political as a technological phenomenon (well, historians always knew that), and corporate tax competition undermines political support for globalization.
Countries like IRL have a special interest in ensuring that globalization remains politically sustainable, and that means curbing its excesses.
Given that so many of the companies involved are American, and that many of the profits not being taxed are American as well, there is a good case for cooperation at the OECD level. Countries like France should be willing to recognise that.
But the European Single Market is an unusually integrated economic area, implying a potential role for European cooperation to ensure that there are not tax races to the bottom within it. IRL should be willing to recognise that also.
So I'm not a fan of pointing the finger, since there are many glass houses out there. But we do need solutions. And if IRL doesn't like the solutions suggested by other countries, it should be proactive & suggest other solutions that would actually make a real difference.
