Don't be evil. Unless it costs more.

[viktor_haag]

"Anything that impinges on Ireland's competitiveness is going to be a big thing for Google, including corporation tax." John Herlihy (head Google Ireland)

Perhaps the Don't Be Evil Dublin local office is just trying to figure out how it's going to pay for that 10% pay-rise they handed their 2,000 employees. Oh, and DBE (Dublin) is apparently not the only ones trying to run the local government. Intel (4,000 employees) is also getting antsy.

The Germans are, apparently, fully behind Ireland's "courageous [proposed] reform policies". Wow. Good for you, Deutschland. But, it might be a great idea if you made your press release sound a teeny bit less like "I've called you all here to tell you that I'm giving a vote of full confidence in our head coaching staff" or "We're waiting for the Dail to approve a rate increase so that more companies decide that working in the rest of Europe, including beautiful Germany, is an awesome idea".

PS -- Ms Merkel's press relations: anyone who's watched "Yes, Minister" or "Yes, Prime Minister" knows damn well what the adjective "courageous" really means in neuvo-politico...

Comments

[alaimacerc.livejournal.com]

I'd hate to try and get into a cynicism bidding war, but one of m'gamer buddies is of the view that most of the US "FDI" (lack of) corporation taxes get funnelled back via Delaware anyway, where they'll pay even less, and the "attractive to inward investment" rate mainly ends up being paid by domestic companies, who might otherwise have been milked for a good bit more, and UK and German financial services companies tax-dumping without any meaningful economic activity here.

I suspect it's testament to just how dire things are that the corp-tax-rate situation isn't being pushed by the rest of the 'zone. Will Hutton (of The Observer, etc) was on the phone to one of the news programmes to opine that RoI couldn't expect to be getting bailed out by the very same countries that are having their "tax bases stolen", as he put it. Apparently it can, but is still very deep in the mire anyway.