The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (Ifac) spent a lot of time this week not naming the elephant in the room, or rather the three elephants in the room.
The budgetary watchdog published a report on Thursday highlighting just how concentrated our corporate tax base has become with just three companies now accounting for almost half of receipts.
For legal reasons, it referred to the trio as tech group 1; tech group 2; and pharma group.
But the identity of these firms is an open secret. Everyone knows the State’s top three taxpayers are Apple, Microsoft and Eli Lilly (and in that order).
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One member of the audience at Ifac’s annual conference on Thursday wondered if Ifac might consider better code names such as Stakeknife, which delivered a laugh.
Gauging the annual tax liability of these companies isn’t an exact science but from the available financial accounts, Ifac reckons Apple paid about €5.8 billion in corporate tax here in 2024 while Microsoft paid €4.8 billion with Eli Lilly handing over €2.2 billion.
Much of the discussion at the conference centred on whether Eli Lilly’s (sorry, pharma group) mammoth exports last year would continue into 2026.
The pharma giant shipped $42.3 billion (€36.4 billion) of ingredients for its weight-loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound from Ireland to the US in the first four months of 2025.
This was initially put down to the company strategically front-loading product into the US to avoid tariffs.
But several contributors wondered if we might be seeing a level shift in Eli Lilly exports linked to the rapid demand for these drugs globally.
The company has recently reconfigured a second factory here to produce the ingredients, presumably because of increased demand.
The company’s needle-free oral weight loss pill, orforglipron, is also set to get regulatory approval later this year, which could further cement its leading position in the market.
All of which means Eli Lilly’s tax liability here should be even larger in the years to come.
