NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE
We’ve been focusing on tax matters ‘across the pond’ a lot lately but if you cast around you can find examples of tax management arrangements closer to home.
These arrangements are legitimate but enable companies to dramatically cut their tax bill.
Nine months ago the Irish Times business section printed this extraordinarily detailed story (link below) on how Companies are helped by the big audit and accountancy firms to cut their tax bills.
In the Irish Times example the Company was a large Irish multi-national food conglomerate and the story stemmed from the leak of a series of documents from PwC in Luxembourg shared via the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Indeed this was no small leak and involved 28000 pages of documentation detailing what are called ‘Advanced Tax Agreements’ with companies around the globe.
The Irish Times made it clear ‘There is no suggestion there is anything illegal about the transactions in the PwC documents’.
In addition a spokesperson for the Company named said ‘it had group companies in Luxembourg but took great care that it met its legal, compliance and disclosure requirements’.
However interestingly as the IT article pointed out ‘the development of Luxembourg’s tax avoidance industry occurred when the new president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, was the finance minister and then the prime minister of the tiny EU member state’.
Perhaps our Irish branch colleagues might like to study the article, (it is heavy going particularly with all the attachments, but well worth wading through) and then direct some questions to Michael Noonan at the Department of Finance asking did he or other EU Finance Ministers ever pursue the issue? After all the man at the top of the EU Commission is eminently placed to provide clarification!
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/glanbia-s-1bn-luxembourg-move-to-cut-its-irish-tax-bill-1.1989452
There’s additional info on Lux-Leaks and much more at the ICIJ site here:
BERNARD MOFFATT
Issued by: The Celtic News
24/09/15
THE CELTIC LEAGUE INFORMATION SERVICE
The Celtic League established in 1961 has branches in the six Celtic Countries. It promotes cooperation between the countries and campaigns on a range of political, cultural and environmental matters. It highlights human rights abuse, military activity and socio-economic issues
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