Chartered Accountants Ireland, under CCAB-I, has responded to the Department of Finance consultation on BEPS. This consultation was the next step in a BEPS process ongoing between the Irish authorities and business groups, which includes Chartered Accountants Ireland. The use of Irish tax policy to foster Foreign Direct Investment has been fundamental in the development of the Irish economy and it is worth defending.

Some of the key points of the response are:

• The Irish system has already been through the mill of good practice scrutiny, harmful tax practices are not a feature of the Irish tax landscape.
• There is a need to review tax treaties, but the concept of limiting their application to enterprises owned and controlled within the respective signatory states means that companies in smaller countries like Ireland could be frozen out of treaty access.
• We have no difficulty with information exchange in countering tax evasion, in particular. However, we would need to see very robust safeguards in the area of Data Protection. Inadequate checks against the security of the data to be exchanged, and the purpose to which the information would be put, could lead to chaos.
• Ireland’s corporation tax system is more transparent than other taxation systems which have higher headline tax rates but also provide for significant deductions to arrive at taxable income and taxable profits.
• Any changes which reduce some of our tax advantages without presenting clear alternatives will damage Foreign Direct Investment, our current corporation tax take, and employment prospects.

The response is published on here.