Ireland at the Core of Apple's Tax Avoidance Strategy

Nat O'Connor: Apple is the latest big global company in the spotlight about its tax affairs and Ireland is named and shamed as assisting the tech company to avoid massive amount of corporate tax in the USA; for example, in this New York Times article.

TASC's recent publication on Tax Injustice gives more detail about how Ireland's tax regime is used to avoid tax.

The irony is that Ireland's Finance Minister is currently leading the EU's charge against tax fraud and tax evasion, but the line between illegal evasion and legal (but increasingly aggressive) tax avoidance is more and more blurred. While a lot of the focus may be on the loopholes in US corporate tax that permits Apple to avoid tax, Ireland's role in facilitating tax avoidance needs to be critically examined as a risky strategy that is attracting negative comment around the world.

Dr Nat O'Connor     @natpolicy

Dr Nat O’Connor is Assistant Professor of Social Policy at UCD, a fellow of the UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy and former Director of TASC. Nat also previously worked at Age Action, the Labour Party, Ulster University and the Homeless Agency. You can find him on LinkedIn (natoconnor) and TwitterX @natpolicy.