Hibernian Financial Terrorism

[gaelic cowboy]

Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression but is not meant to be taken literally.

Go on so then destroy the only good thing about the Irish economy lets all feel high and mighty as the Indians, Brazilian and Chinese gobble them all up.

As usual your fighting the last war and arguing the old mantras on cue blah blah 12.5% corpo tax those graphs show there using Bermuda to avoid paying 12.5% to us too you know.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Go on so then destroy the only good thing about the Irish economy lets all feel high and mighty as the Indians, Brazilian and Chinese gobble them all up.

As usual your fighting the last war and arguing the old mantras on cue blah blah 12.5% corpo tax those graphs show there using Bermuda to avoid paying 12.5% to us too you know.

Tax piracy is not the one good thing about the Irish economy. It is one of the root causes of your current misery.

Ninety-two percent of Google's non-US income is taxed in Ireland: $12.5 billion. Do you know how much tax Google pays over it? 18 million pounds. That is what the Irish state receives. The other 99,5% remains untaxed.

It is insane.

A state that grants tax exemption to befriended corporations must find other means of income. Once corporate tax was reduced to 12,5% in 2004, Dublin found funds in property transactions. The Irish government became dependent on an ever inflating property bubble. Dependent on a bloated financial sector. A bubble which the Irish governments were depoendent on and stimulated. As bubbles go, at some point they explode. Hence, Ireland now faces a budget deficit of...32%. It makes Greece look sane and well-administered.

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Whilst I recognise the Irish love for personal hardship, I must question the sanity of stealing the food of your children to hand it over to a few foreign corporations. Which is, in effect what is happening. The severe, very severe, austerity measures are aimed at Irish citizens. But as the Irish are made to bleed for all they're worth, meanwhile, the right to tax evasion of foreign companies has become the subject of Irish stubborn resistance, complete with nationalist overtones.
It has become almost a bad Irish joke: 'Oh Yeah!? Well you can take away my house, my livelyhood, and even my children. But by Patrick, no foreigner will strip me of my right to get by foreigners!!'.

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Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Intel, others grew big in America. Once they move to Europe, they can sell their products in the entire internal European market. Their high-tech products require little to no local manufacturing, just a headquarters. This they set up in Ireland, for the whole of Europe. No taxes are paid over their profits in Europe.

As a large international company, they now enjoy a massive advantage over other US companies who are starting up in America. They bring home an enormous amount of untaxed foreign profit. Google, Microsoft, etc can simply buy out any emerging domestic competition. So American innovation and competition is obstructed.

Google, Microsoft, pay no taxes. Their competitors, arrived or emerging, located elsewhere in Europe must pay normal taxation. They can not compete with the big boys who on top of enjoying a near monopoly also enjoy tax exemption. Thus European innovation and competition is obstructed.

Irish start-ups must pay a higher tax rate than foreign companies - in Ireland! Ireland has two corporate tax rates: one for small companies, another for large international ones. This creates an unfair advantage to the vested company, stifles innovation. So Irish innovation and competition is obstructed.


Ever wondered why the 4.5 million geographically isolated Fins, with its punitive taxation regime, gave the world Nokia and other new industries, while tax haven Ireland - 4.5 million, geographically isolated - gave the world a record budget deficit and financial crisis? No innovative Irish industry outside of the financial and property markets has sprung up.

The Irish taxation scheme does not produce a thriving, competitive market. It produces gross distortions of the markets. It makes companies dependent on government favours. It stimulates the formation and subsequent protection of large monopolies, especially in the high-tech industry. It stifles homegrown innovation. It is concerned with increasing a share of the pie, not with enlarging the pie. Ireland's tax regime disrupts competition and a functioning market on two continents.

It needs to go the way of East Germany, as another failed experiment in governmental attempt to obstruct a free, functioning market.