irelands low corporation tax

I disagree with you Duplex.

Labour costs will absolutely decimate manufacturing etc. in the Western world - however, manufacturing only accounts for around 19.7% of US GDP - services makes up over 79% ([broken link removed]). Therefore labour-based arbitrage will have a far more limited impact than you imagine.

CoffeeBrew said:

In this case the activity getting attention is transfer pricing and not intellectual property shift as has been discussed earlier.

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Transfer pricing is an issue for more than the IRS

Look at Toyota and all the flack they are getting from everywhere

The problem with this is again there are loads of legitimate reasons around these issues

"Labour costs will absolutely decimate manufacturing etc. in the Western world - however, manufacturing only accounts for around 19.7% of US GDP - services makes up over 79% ([broken link removed]). Therefore labour-based arbitrage will have a far more limited impact than you imagine."

Last week i was watching a documrntary on the american media on this very topic. They were using a typical midwestern town which in the eighties most of the town was employed in electronics manufacturing which was relatively well payed. However the electronics is gone but unemployment is still low because the population is by and large working in services. The problem is that wages are low in the services industry compared to manufacturing in the eighties. Peoples lfestyle expectations have gone up but their wages havn't kept up with their expectations, the difference is being met by debt. alot of services jobs are not sustainable in an environment of rising interest rates and reduced consumer spending

Big tax case coming up:

A LANDMARK European court case could greatly reduce Ireland’s ability to attract foreign direct investment
.
.
If the ECJ decides that the Inland Revenue were right in pursuing Cadbury, the case could have
major ramifications for Ireland. It would mean that many hundreds of companies here could face similar
claims, and hitting the attractiveness of Ireland as a place to do business

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http://www.finfacts.ie/news/examiner.htm

I'll watch that case Coffeebrew thanks, I wonder why the UK Inland Revenue took so long to take action?


This is worth a read;



http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10004162.shtml


A damming report on the ossification of the Irish economy, but is this doom mongering or a warning that should be headed by government and society.

Intel, Dell, Pfizer and HP are foreign-owned manufacturing firms in Ireland responsible for 90% of Irish exports. An Irish State-funded report predicts that most of these enterprises will have moved to low-cost economies by 2025. Growth in exports from the dominant indigenous enterprises will remain relatively low.

These powerhouses are the key drivers of the Irish economy.
· 90% of industrial exports are made by foreign owned firms
· Most of the products we manufacture are designed elsewhere
· The bulk of our exports are marketed/sold by organisations based outside Ireland
· Ireland's industrial base relies on 149,654 jobs in 1,273 foreign-owned companies and on 147,895 jobs in 7,390 Irish firms. The service sector, with 240,000 businesses registered for VAT, employs about two-thirds of workers and accounts for 70% of GDP.

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An Irish State-funded report predicts that most of these enterprises will have moved to low-cost economies by 2025!!!!!!!!!!

Thus, more than 42 per cent of the private non-farm employment increase of the past five years is accounted for directly by construction. This is before including rising employment in construction-related activities such as building suppliers, materials manufacturers, estate agents, mortgage brokers, etc. If we allowed for these, we would comfortably account for more than half of the private sector employment gains since 2000, and that's before speaking about multiplier effects.

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Two top-notch technical companies announced jobs in Ireland today.

Seagate adds to its Northern Irish manufacturing base. Google to its Dublin HQ.

Must admit I was disappointed to see the jobs list for the Google set up. It seems mainly sales, financial and legal?

Doesn't look like any of the brilliant computer research that Google is so famous for is coming here - the sort of stuff that can lead to ongoing and long term benefits.

Great to see the jobs but is there a slight whiff of tax-haven convenience again ?

http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/1213/google.html

CoffeeBrew said:

Doesn't look like any of the brilliant computer research that Google is so famous for is coming here - the sort of stuff that can lead to ongoing and long term benefits.

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Google is mainly an advertising company these days! Hence the profile of the jobs.

daveirl said:

Google is mainly an advertising company these days! Hence the profile of the jobs.

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Behind that simple Google search screen there is a lot of very advanced computer science.

Take a look at some of the research publications from the staff at the Google engineering group:

[broken link removed]

A while back there was some talk of Google opening an Irish R&D base but I haven't seen anything in the latest press reports that this is going to happen.

Ireland can offer multinationals good opportunities for tax avoidance (I didn't say evasion!) in their home countries and that seems to be a big attraction for many of them.