Ireland’s shamefully soft deal with Apple helps it to rip off poorest nations

Ireland’s role in helping some of the world’s richest corporations to avoid paying their fair share of tax globally sucks more money out of poor countries than we give them in charity. That’s a small point missing from the debate over whether we should ‘take the money and run’ after the European Commission’s decision to award us up to €19bn in back-taxes from Apple.

Incredible as it may seem, that enormous sum is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the tax avoidance we facilitate.

Many of the richest corporations route global profits through Ireland to avoid paying tax.

Countries such as Britain and Australia are up in arms about this, as it is a breach of the ‘social contract’ that is supposed to underpin democracies.

That contract says that well-off companies and individuals should contribute taxes to help the poor and keep the country running. That’s the theory, anyway.

If one element of this contract breaks down – such as the richest corporations paying nearly zilch – others have to cough up more than their fair share, or social services suffer. Next comes social unrest.

This is already happening with discontent manifested in Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump.

People around the world are rightly angry that companies like Apple – the richest in the world – use all the roads, education, healthcare and policing services that ordinary citizens’ taxes pay for. They’ve even got State supports for research and development.

But somehow they get away without coughing up their fair share of tax on a colossal global scale – because Ireland allows them to route profits through us and off to another tax haven.

It’s bad enough that we help Apple and its ilk to avoid paying tax in well-off countries. But doing it to poverty-stricken nations is a disgrace. Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz named and shamed us last week for helping to ‘rob’ developing countries in this way.

And TD Katherine Zappone supported the Apple appeal only because ‘….the process would allow those countries who felt robbed or cheated by the past actions of Ireland and Apple to make their case and, hopefully, get the taxes which they lost out on’.

Oxfam has also fingered Ireland as one of the top 10 tax-avoidance regimes in the world.

These help take ‘$100bn out of the developing world every year through corporate tax avoidance’, the charity calculated in a recent report – much of this routed through Ireland.

‘Taxes paid, or unpaid, by multinational companies in poor countries can be the difference between life and death, poverty or opportunity. $100bn is four times what 47 developing countries combined spend on educating their 932 million citizens,’ Oxfam warned.

It could also provide water and sanitation for 2.2 billion people – almost everyone in dire need.

Christian Aid estimated that the developing world loses almost twice the annual global aid budget through corporate tax avoidance of the type facilitated by Ireland – ‘enough to save the lives of 350,000 children under the age of five every year’.

Meanwhile, our Government gives more than €600m in foreign aid every year – and we donate €840m more to charities.

But what is the point of this when we’re facilitating tax avoidance in developing countries on a much bigger scale? ‘We are giving with one hand and taking with two,’ said Owen Wright of Trocaire.

Christian Aid confirmed that Ireland’s role in facilitating tax avoidance – costing developing nations a trillion euros every decade – far outweighs what we contribute through charity.

So maybe we should claim the tax owed by Apple – if only to redistribute it to the poor countries that we helped take it from in the first place.