Tax

Multinational profits hit €100bn for 2020, but tax take shy of 12.5%

Over an eight-year period, Irish subsidiaries of global companies paid less than headline rate, but UCC economist Seamus Coffey says this should not cause concern

Seamus Coffey, a UCC economist, found that the dividends and retained earnings of foreign-owned multinationals soared from €38 billion in 2010 to €99 billion a decade later. The report was commissioned by the Department of Finance. Picture: John Allen

Foreign-owned multinationals paid less than the headline 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate in Ireland for eight straight years while their profits soared to just shy of €100 billion, new research has found.

A report commissioned by the Department of Finance shows that the Irish subsidiaries of global firms paid an indicative effective corporate tax rate of between 8.7 per cent and 11.9 per cent each year between 2013 and 2020.

The state’s headline rate ...