‘I’m not phased by US tax cuts’, Varadkar

IRELAND will not be adversely affected by changes to the US corporate tax regime, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has pledged.

The US Government yesterday began the process of attempting to cut their corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%.

But Mr Varadkar said that Ireland would still win out as our rate of 12.5% remains constantly the same whereas, he said, a different US president could again hike the tax levels.

He said: ‘I don’t think the US proposals will have much of an impact on us.

‘As a country we believe that individual countries should set their own tax rates, so it wouldn’t make any sense f or us to criticise.

‘What we always say about our tax rate is that it is constant, we have a 12.5% tax rate now for corporations for decades and that has withstood changes of Government, it has withstood recessions and periods of economic expansion so very much our tax offering is as much about the certainty as the rate.

‘A different president in America might put it up again, same thing applies in Britain. Jeremy Corbyn might bring them up, Theresa May could bring them down.

‘The certainty is a part of our tax offering. But it has never been the case that a low corporate tax rate is all we have to offer.

‘In my meetings with Facebook, they wanted to know about the talent pool, about whether we will be staying at the heart of Europe.

‘Tax has only ever been a small part of what we offer.’

He said he did not believe that Ireland was overly exposed in relation to the small number of large companies that pay the majority of the corporate tax, saying that Ireland is now more ‘economically diverse than ever.’