The Department of Finance recently published its second Annual Taxation Report. While the report sets out that tax revenue in 2018 was the highest on record at €55.6 billion, the report also sounds a cautionary note on Ireland’s reliance on the corporation tax yield from a relatively small number of companies and the impact of Brexit on Ireland’s public finances.

In the context of imbalances, the Report notes that the direct yield from the corporate sector now accounts for nearly €1 in every €5 of tax collected, the highest share on record. This makes the State’s revenue stream vulnerable to fluctuations in corporate profitability. The report also sets out that a further vulnerability arises from the concentration of corporation tax within a relatively small number of firms: the largest 10 payers of corporation tax account for two-fifths of the corporate tax yield.