Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 20 July 2016
43. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation whether the Government's decision to oppose the European Union proposal to introduce public country-by-country reporting for large multinational companies was purely on the grounds of subsidiarity; if so, if the Government now proposes to introduce these measures itself at a national level; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17502/16]
View answerA few weeks ago, the Government opposed an EU proposal to introduce public country-by- country reporting of corporation tax for large multinational companies on the spurious grounds of subsidiarity. Are we going to bring in public country-by-country reporting ourselves?
Last April, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a directive to introduce public country-by-country reporting of corporation tax by large multinational enterprises.
Since then, my Department has been considering the detail of the proposal and consulting with stakeholders. The Department also ran an open consultation in the course of last May. The task of assessing the proposal is continuing and, at EU level, the negotiations have begun. Although they are at an early stage, it is clear that the proposal raises a number of practical, legal and technical issues. These will need to be addressed over the coming months. Until we know the scope and content of any final EU measure, it is too soon to consider national measures on this type of public reporting. However, Ireland is already to the fore in introducing similar reporting obligations for large multinational companies. Under the Finance Act 2015, certain Irish-resident parent companies and subsidiaries of non-Irish companies must file a country-by-country report on tax with the Revenue Commissioners each year. The first of these reports are due to be submitted to the Revenue by the end of next year. Several countries, including the US and all EU member countries, have committed to introducing this form of country-by-country reporting and to sharing the information among their tax authorities.
The Minister may have heard this week that we are already paying a big price because of aggressive tax avoidance by multinational corporations. We will have to pay an extra €280 million to the EU this year because of the artificial inflation of the growth figures. Already, even before that, our contribution to the EU is grossly inflated and distorted because it is, in proportion to population, double that of countries such as Portugal and others due to the tax avoidance strategies of multinationals based in this country. It is in our interests to have public country-by-country reporting of the big multinational companies to stop them engaging in aggressive tax avoidance. Yet, incredibly, when offered the opportunity to do that by the European Union, we used the spurious excuse of subsidiarity to reject that proposal. What the Minister seems to be saying is that we cannot do it on our own. I agree with that, but why the hell did we not sign up to a pan-European proposal to do it, instead saying that we could not sign up to it because it infringes our sovereignty? It does not make any sense.
I reject tax avoidance. We cannot do it on our own. If we were to publish the figures the Deputy is referring to, it would allow some companies to gain a possible commercial advantage over others because matters would be deemed to be commercially sensitive. Other jurisdictions might not share the information with us if they knew we were going to publish the reports. It would not help the tax transparency agenda and a system of country-by-country reporting. I cannot do it.
I thank the Minister. That brings Question Time to a close, and we are moving-----
There are 21 seconds remaining.
We are moving on. I asked for the Deputy's co-operation. I have three different clocks here. I am going to move on to Topical Issues.
