The latest full-year exchequer returns indicate – above all else – just how little Ireland has been affected by the main economic news story of 2025: tariffs.
Despite extensive warnings about the State’s precarious position in Donald Trump’s new world order, Ireland’s economy and the multinationals that use it as an export base continue to thrive.
Goods exports, comprising mainly pharmaceuticals, rose by €41 billion or 22 per cent to €228.5 billion in the first 10 months of last year, according to the most up-to-date trade statistics.
That’s in part a reflection of companies front-loading exports into the US in advance of Trump’s tariff announcements last year.
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But the bumper corporation tax receipts detailed in the latest year-end exchequer returns reflect – more than anything else- the fact that the economy’s two blockbuster industries, IT and pharma, remain outside Trump’s tariff loop.
This has preserved and in some cases increased the huge profits generated by these companies and bolstered Irish tax coffers in the process.
Corporate tax receipts, excluding the Apple tax money, amounted to a record €32.9 billon last year, €3.3 billion higher than what had been forecast in Budget 2025.
The exchequer collected €10 billion in November alone. The November total was more than the State used to collect in an entire year less than a decade ago.
Ireland is imperiously immune to the debt and deficit problems coursing through European economies, something that stands in the way of investment in the continent’s security at an increasingly perilous time.
But have we become too reliant on these receipts? For an answer to this question, take a look at the acceleration in spending. It has risen at an alarming rate, by over 9 per cent a year since 2019.
Minister for Finance, Simon Harris noted that corporate tax receipts now account for almost one-third of all tax revenues collected by the State. The fact that over 60 per cent of this tax channel is being generated by 10 large firms leaves us heavily exposed.
Apple’s main Irish-registered entity was responsible for €8.2 billion of the €28 billion collected in 2024. This was separate from the €13 billion that flowed in courtesy of the Apple tax case.
If the world falls out of love with iPhones, the Irish exchequer will have a problem.
The other two big components of Government tax revenue – income tax and VAT – both came in ahead of target and up on the previous year, reflecting the strength of the State’s labour market where a record 2.8 million people are employed.
More people at work means more people spending and paying tax.
The income tax system remains lopsided in that it relies on too few, very well-paid workers, leaving it vulnerable to sudden shifts in the wider economy.
The Government, for now, however, can afford effectively to sit on its hands because of those windfall corporation taxes which paper over any cracks in Ireland’s economic picture.
