Sir, – The Burke Institute is concerned about "aggressive" tax reassessments being taken by our Revenue Commissioners against multinationals ("'Aggressive' tax reassessments damaging Ireland's reputation, group claims", Business, March 24th).
Revenue’s action seems to me to be entirely reasonable, given that the same multinationals indulge in their own, extremely aggressive, tax planning.
Multinational companies, many of them sitting on vast cash reserves, generally display very little sense of social responsibility. One of their missions, absent from their sanitised “mission statements”, is to pay as little tax as possible, and none at all if that can be managed.
They typically use an army of tax advisers here to guide them in their mission. Ordinary people can’t afford that option.
What Revenue is doing here is enforcing our tax laws. The Burke Institute seems to be inferring that these multinationals should be treated as being somehow above the law: an interesting, but by no means new, proposition. – Yours, etc,
BILL POWER,
Tramore,
Co Waterford.