I wouldn't mind working in e.g. Ireland if a furnished apartment was part of the offer.
... which Ireland proceeded not to do. Then the new prime minister went onto TV declaring what a great success all this was for Ireland (... while ignoring that this is literally stealing money from other EU countries), and how they intend to continue this and were putting some of the money into a new "Irish" sovereign wealth fund (isif.ie) that has since used the money to hire the zero-experience-and-suspiciously-young-for-such-positions-but-totally-awesome investement team [2] composed of members of his own party that have been tasked with investing in Irish x business (please replace x with "the taoseach's new business" when making investment decisions and leave it out when publishing in the paper)
For unknown reasons, there is nothing on the isif.ie site about what they effectively do: steal money from EU hospitals, schools, pensions ... to personally enrich large US companies, and of course themselves. This is also missing from the government speeches on how fantastic they are.
But do not worry. Meanwhile in Brussels and Strasbourg, the requisition for a meeting about the approval of the color of the bikeshed (so called because when you call the place where you park your armoured Audi A9 motorcade a bikeshed chances of reelection go up dramatically. It IS, of course, a garage that was built where a park with a playground used to be) where then the request for the beginning of the process to requisition a meeting room to discuss who will make the agenda for discussing a meeting room for the actual issue is making great progress!
[1] https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-finance/press-releases/m...
Can you provide a source for this assertion? AFAIK, we've implemented the 15% rate (but the profit shifting part died in the US senate, which Ireland is not responsible for).
> the zero-experience-and-suspiciously-young-for-such-positions-but-totally-awesome investement team [2]
They all look to be 40+ from the linked page (except for one lady who looks to be late 20's/early 30s).
> omposed of members of his own party that have been tasked with investing in Irish x business (please replace x with "the taoseach's new business" when making investment decisions and leave it out when publishing in the paper)
I really hate Fianna Fail (the Taoiseach's party) but Micheal Martin has never been corrupt. He is literally the most boring person in the world, but he's not corrupt.
> For unknown reasons, there is nothing on the isif.ie site about what they effectively do: steal money from EU hospitals, schools, pensions ... to personally enrich large US companies, and of course themselves. This is also missing from the government speeches on how fantastic they are.
Look, I get that this is tax avoidance in some sense, but it's worth noting that most US tech companies are booking all non-US revenue in Ireland (taxed at 15%) rather than Bermuda (taxed at 0%) for about a decade now.
Do you think that Ireland should have had to bail out banks with a debt exceeding the country's GDP? Was this moral? And then basically be put into controls on the part of the EU (who are the people preventing them from burning the bondholders).
Ireland is basically the most indebted country per head in the world at this point (the GDP looks better because of the tax dodging multinationals).
And lets be honest, the same multinationals would have found a different country to launder money through if Ireland wasn't there.
To answer the question above about properties in Dublin, this has a number of reasons:
1. post 2007 (the crash) housebuilding stopped for about a decade 2. Over the past decade, Ireland has seen significant immigration, particularly in the cities which has driven up prices 3. A zoning/planning system which is very similar to California and a culture where people object to the opening of an envelope 4. Lots and lots of investment in rental properties which pushes up house prices, which pushes up rents, which pushes up house prices.
Basically a lot of the above are problems of success, which Ireland is bad at dealing with because we've basically never had any success before.
https://www.google.com/search?q=current+tax+rate+for+multina...
> They all look to be 40+ from the linked page
Not really. 30, some even less. Average age is probably 40. So indeed, suspiciously young the positions they hold. How many leaders of a large investment fund are under 60 at least?
> Look, I get that this is tax avoidance in some sense, but
(it is)
> Do you think that Ireland should have had to bail out banks with a debt exceeding the country's GDP?
(yes, that is, after all, the promise a country or anyone makes when they borrow money. Alternatively you could NOT bail them out)
> And lets be honest, the same multinationals would have found a different country to launder money through if Ireland wasn't there ...
I couldn't make my point any better than you did here. This is stealing, simply because it is not Irish tax revenue.
> Basically a lot of the above are problems of success, ...
Enabling tax avoidance, especially after signing international treaties that you would do the opposite is not success.
From the second line of the AI overview. I mean, seriously?
So the 12.5% rate remains for irish headquartered companies, NOT multinationals. And personally I'm OK with that (cries as he pays 52% marginal).
> Not really. 30, some even less. Average age is probably 40. So indeed, suspiciously young the positions they hold. How many leaders of a large investment fund are under 60 at least?
You and I clearly have different ideas of what older people look like. They mostly look like the kind of middle-aged people I work with. And I think you're missing that most of those roles are pretty low-level, the investment fund is very very small by investment fund standards.
> (yes, that is, after all, the promise a country or anyone makes when they borrow money. Alternatively you could NOT bail them out)
So, the Irish government tried (repeatedly) to renegotiate those deals. The bondholders were (mostly) fine with it (as they'd bought the bonds later). The ECB and the IMF refused to allow this to happen, for fear of contagian. This lead to basically all capital projects (housing/water etc) being cut, and basically the entire public service taking massive pay cuts. And remember, at this point the multinationals were paying approximately zero tax, so people like me (higher rate taxpayers) funded all of this.
And as a result, we have huge infrastructural deficits and a housing crisis (where this thread got started).
> This is stealing, simply because it is not Irish tax revenue.
This is a ridiculous argument, who does the tax revenue "belong" to? If the US charges Shell taxes on their US activity is that stealing? If the Feds charge Shell tax revenue on their Texas activities is that stealing? If Shell pay all their corporate tax in Delaware is that stealing?
I'm making the assumption that you are Dutch (based on previous comments). Was the Dutch East India company stealing from India? Is that also against your moral code? Do you plan to make reparations to the Indians about this?
> Enabling tax avoidance, especially after signing international treaties that you would do the opposite is not success.
Again, on the assumption that you are Dutch, do you realise that most of the schemes avoiding all of the tax (the double irish with a dutch sandwich) involved your country? Was that OK? How come you haven't changed your tax laws?
Note: i think there's a really interesting question here around where revenue "should" be taxed so even if you're annoyed at the rest of the comment, I'd appreciate your thoughts on that.
