quarta-feira, outubro 06, 2004
Irlanda: Como Cortar Nos Impostos e Ficar Rico
Artigo na Spectator.
If any individual can claim to be the progenitor of the mythical Celtic tiger, it is Mr McCreevy [1], who went against the advice of his departmental mandarins and proved that cutting corporation tax would actually increase the yield for the exchequer.
The Republic of Ireland has a corporation tax rate of 12.5 per cent; it is 30 per cent in the UK. The Industrial Development Authority (IDA), Ireland's job-creating agency, says that the tax regime is not the most important factor in persuading multinational companies to invest - a flexible, young, well-educated, English-speaking workforce is the number one lure - but a low corporation tax comes a close second. The IDA says that a stable political environment, where the mainstream Fine Gael and Labour parties support the current coalition government's corporation tax policy, is the third reason they believe Ireland has attracted so many foreign companies. The Green party, Sinn Fein, and other adolescent and ancient socialists have suggested increasing corporation tax, but few take them seriously and they are unlikely in the foreseeable future to be in a position to influence taxation policy.
Some 20 per cent of the multinational companies seeking to set up shop in Europe come to Ireland. Software, pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of health-care products, the service industries that now provide many more high-paying jobs than manufacturing, have been streaming into Ireland over the past 15 years. The IDA also says it has been streamlining its approach to cut out the bureaucracy that has hampered the UK and other older, larger countries in attracting the multinationals.
Prudence was never a quality attributed to the national stereotype, but in 2003 investment as a proportion of the Irish Gross National Product (GNP) - a more accurate indicator of actual income than GDP because of the unusually high number of foreign investors who export their profits - was 28 per cent compared with 16 per cent in the UK and 19 per cent for the EU. Irish people find it difficult to comprehend their recent good fortune. Analysing a report by the Economic and Social Research Institute last week, Brendan Keenan, the doyen of Irish economic journalists, asked rhetorically "where did it all go right?" The volume of output is expected to increase by 10 per cent over 2004 and 2005 and this comes on top of a 50 per cent increase during the boom of the 1990s. The forecast for growth this year is 5 per cent, more than anyone would have predicted even six months ago, and the government will be better off by £1.5 billion - a significant sum in a country with a population of four million.
[1] Anterior Ministro das Finanças e actualmente designado como Comissário do Mercado Interno e Serviços da UE.
posted by Miguel Noronha 2:41 da tarde
Comments:
Enviar um comentário
