Irish tax experts play down potential impact of proposals here

Tax experts here have downplayed the potential impact on Ireland of new European Commission proposals on the automatic exchange of tax rulings.

Feargal O’Rourke of PwC Ireland said Ireland had a transparent, rules-based tax system and “had positively co-operated with the EU over last 18 months on an examination of a swathe of tax rulings going back many years.”

“Not all countries followed our lead. I don’t believe Ireland has anything to fear from this proposal given the nature of our tax regime and Ireland has been to the forefront in trying to increase tax transparency generally.”

“However, the proposal is short on detail and I suspect there will need to be a lot of technical engagement from the member states,” he added.

There was also a question about whether “rulings” encompassed clarifaction responses made by the Revenue to companies operating here, although Commission officials suggested the wording of the proposals would be wide.

Peter Vale, tax partner at Grant Thornton in Dublin, said: “All we ever gave out was clarifications on the interpretation of legislation, and there’s a question as to whether the [proposed]legislation would be drafted widely enough to cover this.”

If it is, he admitted “there was a little bit of the unknown” about what might be in these “clarifaction responses” by Revenue.

However, Mr Vale said he did not expect the proposals to turn up anything “that looks bad from an Irish perspective”.

“I’d be surprised because they’re weren’t any rulings or special low tax rates” that were deemed to be interest rate deductions, he said, noting the headline rate of corporation tax here was very close to the effective rate.