The head of AIB says the bank will not pay corporate tax for another 18 or 19 years.That's despite the bank reporting pre-tax profits of 1.6 billion euro last year. AIB is allowed to write off tax costs based on previous losses of €3bn during the financial crisis. AIB CEO Bernard Byrne has told the Public Expenditure Committee that is likely to give them almost two decades of tax-free income.He said: "We don't definitively know is the answer because obviously, it's a calculation based on profitability at any point in time, so what we gave is a set of estimates based on a prediction of future profitability."If you apply for a similar number you end up somewhere between 17-18 years, I think in terms of a projection based on a set of assumptions that ultimately will vary on the actual financial performance of the bank."Watch proceedings below or follow the link - Digital Desk … [Read more...] about AIB will not pay corporate tax for almost two decades
Pay corporation tax
Corporate tax rate in Iceland reduced to 15%
corporate tax rate in Iceland to 15%. The change applies for transactions during the 2008 financial year and will come into effect for tax returns filed in 2009. The reduction in tax from 18% to 15% is part of a strategy to make the Icelandic business environment one of the most competitive in the world. Companies in the Nordic countries pay in the range of 24%-28% tax on their profits and the ratio is even higher in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, at up to 36%.The government is focusing on a simple and effective tax system with low corporate tax, rather than the creation of a multitude of different incentives used in other countries. Iceland has been a key destination for a number of international companies that have decided to relocate their business to the country in the past few years. In particular, data centres have been springing up all over the country thanks to the abundance of cheap and environmentally friendly energy. Apart from the 15% tax on profits, other highlights of … [Read more...] about Corporate tax rate in Iceland reduced to 15%
‘Big tech firms should pay more tax to help small firms’
Multi-national tech firms based in the UK should pay more tax "to level the playing field" for small businesses, a Leicestershire MP has said. Harborough’s Tory MP Neil O’Brien has called for a fairer system of taxation for firms such as Google and Amazon, which make massive profits but pay comparatively low sums to the Treasury. Mr O’Brien secured a debate on the issue in Parliament last week which heard that Google made £4.3 billion in the UK in 2014, but paid only £30 million in corporation tax. Last year Amazon made more than £7 billion of sales in the UK and paid £7.4 million in corporation tax. Mr O’Brien said he wanted to look at ways of modernising the tax system to account for the growing digital economy, to create a fairer system and enable the Government to do more to cut tax on small businesses. He said: “This is an important issue that is regularly raised by small businesses across the constituency. “From independent … [Read more...] about ‘Big tech firms should pay more tax to help small firms’
[Opinion] Europe needs corporate tax reform
![[Opinion] Europe needs corporate tax reform](https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/fetch/w_340,h_200,c_crop,g_face/https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/euobs-media/fdcc8850f30c7dab1add2377343d5fbb-480x.jpg)
Europe's tax laws haven't kept up with the digital economy. As in most other places, its bricks and mortar businesses are taxed on how much and, crucially, where they get paid. On the other hand a movie streaming service in one country will pay tax there but not to the governments of its foreign customers. Hence the European Commission believes that digital businesses are different. But as well as proposing a hard-to-criticise measure that will limit their intra-EU tax minimisation strategies it is also proposing a special digital turnover tax that will punish productivity, penalise European consumers, and slow Europe's progress towards the Digital Single Market. Europe's finance ministers are worried that the growing digital economy—online sales in Europe rose from 13 percent of all sales in 2008 to 20 percent in 2016—and EU members' own varying tax regimes are destabilising their tax base. In 2016 the commission brought forward a proposal for a Corporate … [Read more...] about [Opinion] Europe needs corporate tax reform
50p? Corporation tax is what needs cutting
If the Chancellor wants to tinker with the tax system to give the economy a lift, maybe the 50p top rate of income tax for those earning more than £150,000 shouldn't be the first thing in his sights. There are reasons for George Osborne to look elsewhere beyond merely wanting to give Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg an easy cheer at the Liberal Democrats' conference this week. The surprising thing about the whole debate - kicked off by a recent economists' letter to the Financial Times - is the lack of compelling evidence of how the tax has hit growth. Having spoken to economists and statisticians, including one or two who signed the letter, there's little sign of a smoking gun. We're told the 50p rate is a disaster for entrepreneurship and crippling inward investment, risking the future of the economy for a paltry £2.7billion in revenues which are more than cancelled out by the damage caused by the tax grab. The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the canny … [Read more...] about 50p? Corporation tax is what needs cutting