Being yes men of Europe has got Ireland nowhere

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Being yes men of Europe has got Ireland nowhere

May 18th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Being yes men of Europe has got Ireland nowhere

MORTEN MESSERSCHMIDT
The Irish Times
Wednesday, May 16, 2012

OPINION : The Irish corporate tax regime will come under severe pressure from our EU partners if the fiscal treaty is passed

A MAELSTROM of international events over the last month has dramatically changed the context of the fiscal treaty debate – from France and Greece’s electoral rejection of austerity to the German government saying it will have to delay ratification in the Bundestag because it cannot muster a sufficient majority to pass it.

In this light, it would appear more prudent to vote against the treaty which many in Europe are already turning against.

One consequence of this recent political chaos is that many people sadly missed the pivotal comments of European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi who said that the fiscal treaty was the first step towards a fiscal union.

He elaborated in Barcelona on May 3rd: “If we want to have a fiscal union, we have to accept the delegation of fiscal sovereignty from the national governments to some form of central body, but how do we get there?”

I would argue that Irish fiscal sovereignty regarding the corporate tax issue will be put under severe pressure if the fiscal union treaty is passed.

The European Parliament voted overwhelming for a compulsory common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB) across the EU. The Thyssen report, passed last month by 452 votes to 172, proposes an EU corporate tax base, setting out rules for where and how much corporations pay the tax they owe.

Germany and France (which dominate the EU) in February already announced that they will soon have a harmonised common consolidated corporate tax base. So this issue is very much on the EU agenda. New French president François Hollande is also in favour of the common corporate tax base, and as a good socialist, he even wants to raise the corporate tax rate in France.

So the corporate tax issue is very much on the EU’s agenda, contrary to what Lucinda Creighton, Minister of State for European Affairs, said at the last Fine Gael Ardfheis. Given that Enda Kenny has called the corporate tax base “the harmonisation of the tax rates by the back door”, this is very bad for news for Ireland.

Whereas the European Parliament wants the common corporate tax base to be compulsory, the European Commission in 2011 has called for at least nine states to introduce it by “enhanced co-operation”.