Sir, – I write in response to Bill Power, who wrote of the concerns of the Edmund Burke Institute regarding the increasingly aggressive tax reassessments being carried out by Revenue (Letters, March 28th).
Mr Power says that we are inferring that multinationals should be treated as being above the law.
In no way is that what we are suggesting.
We do not want companies to be above the rules; what we want is a situation in which the rules they operate under are clear, understandable, and not open to retroactive change years later.
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Between 2015 and 2018, there were 2,374 amended assessments by Revenue. More importantly, the number of amended assessments being handed out to individuals and companies increased dramatically during that period, from 337 amended assessments in 2015 to 915 in 2018.
This clear upward trend, which the Fianna Fail finance spokesman Michael McGrath TD has identified, is of concern to us and to many individuals and businesses across the country.
Apart from the dramatic increase in the number of amended assessments, the size of the assessments is also concerning. If we take just three of those 2,374 cases, involving Perrigo, Analog Devices and Takeda, the three companies between them received upward reassessments of over €2 billion.
Ireland’s reputation is that of a place that is good to do business, but we will struggle, in the future, to present ourselves as a place companies should invest substantial sums if companies cannot trust that the tax they are told they owe is what they actually end up paying. – Yours, etc,
GARY KAVANAGH,
Director,
Edmund Burke Institute,
Gorey,
Co Wexford.