Sir, – Germany’s largest utility company, RWE, a major international investor, has warned in the UK that it will reconsider its planned £15 billion investment in renewable energy if a windfall tax is imposed on its electricity generators’ profits.
RWE’s chief executive warned that it is monitoring political decisions and regulations and that “everybody would reconsider” if things change. This is a rational response from an international business with many options for how and where it deploys its capital.
Ireland’s income tax base and corporate tax base are dominated by the FDI multinational sector.
Anyone who has ever operated at a senior level in a large international business will recognise that public policy, including taxation matters, along with regulatory policy matters, are monitored when making investment decisions.
Sinn Féin and People Before Profit support windfall taxation on energy companies.
For leftists such as these, the benefits of globalisation and foreign investment are assumed to be both automatic and permanent.
These two parties also want to introduce a tax on private capital itself, not just on capital gains, by means of a so-called wealth tax.
Sinn Féin say they can put more taxes on higher earners and on private wealth and that the result will be more revenue for Ireland’s exchequer.
The left’s assumption multinational corporations will stay and continue investing, that high-earning employees are not mobile and that they are willing to remain in Ireland if Sinn Féin or People Before Profit reduce and remove their personal tax credits. It is also assumed that those earning over ¤140,000 will be willing to pay a new “solidarity tax” planned by Sinn Féin.
People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy says that salaries should be capped at ¤150,000 as part of a full roll-out of socialism in this country.
In my view, Ireland’s hugely important foreign direct investment sector is unlikely to benignly accept Sinn Féin and People Before Profit tax policies if ever they are implemented in this country. – Yours, etc,
MARK MOHAN,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.