Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has said he now expects the European Commission to deliver its verdict on its ongoing investigation into Ireland's tax arrangements with Apple next year due to a request from the commission for further information from Dublin.
As reported in The Irish Times on Saturday, the European Commission has requested further information related to the tax rulings offered by Irish tax authorities to Apple.
"We have had a signal from commissioner Vestager that they want further information prompted by the information we gave them already. It will probably take two weeks or so to put it together . . . so I don't foresee a decision before Christmas now."
The commission’s competition division is investigating whether Ireland broke EU state aid rules in relation to two specific tax rulings offered by Irish tax authorities and Apple.
Corporate tax regime
Asked about whether the merger of pharmaceutical giants
Pfizer
and
Allergan
will put an international spotlight on Ireland’s corporate tax regime, Mr Noonan said IDA Ireland does not promote tax inversion, which is a matter for individual companies. “Everybody knows that the issue of inversion is in the hands of the companies that decided to do it. Pfizer and Allergan are both very big investors in Ireland, and they have both very tangible, substantial, interests in Ireland,” he said. “The merged entity now will have its headquarters in Ireland but we’re not pushing for inversion. The IDA never promotes inversion. It’s a decision by the two countries. Our interests would be to ensure not only would there be no job losses, but that jobs are created.”
Mr Noonan was speaking at a scheduled eurogroup meeting of euro zone finance ministers which took place despite the terrorist warnings in Brussels and which formally approved the 2016 budgets of euro zone countries, including Ireland.
The commission ruled the Irish budget was “broadly compliant” with European stability and growth pact rules, but queried some expenditure figures, warning there was a risk of “some deviation” from expenditure targets in 2016.
Mr Noonan said the commission has based its assessment on its own expenditure figures, rather than the figures used by Irish authorities. “By using their figures, they thought that we were pressing close to the expenditure ceilings, but if we use our figures, we’re well inside them,” he said.
Terrorism costs
Eurogroup chairman
Jeroen Dijsselbloem
said France’s budget for 2016 was broadly compliant with EU rules, but a decision on whether extra security costs associated with this month’s Paris terrorist attacks would be reflected in budget targets would only be assessed next year. Spain, which was already warned this year it was at risk of breaching EU budget targets, will be faced with changing its budget to comply with EU budget rules when the new government is appointed after December’s elections.
Euro zone finance ministers also signed off on a €2 billion disbursement for Greece, after the country was deemed to have implemented an agreed set of milestones. "This is an important step towards addressing the main challenges that the Greek economy is facing and towards restoring it to a sustainable path," the eurogroup said.
