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Ireland has less than half the population of the Paris metro area, so while the difference in GDP per capita may be stark, the actual amount of money is a pitta

Ireland has less than half the population of the Paris metro area, so while the difference in GDP per capita may be stark, the actual amount of money is a pittance relative to the European economy. The Irish economy is less than 2% of the EU total. 100 billion EUR of GDP growth in Ireland is not the cause of stagnation in economies that are 10x it's size. The problem facing other European economies is not that large amounts of actual economic activity is moving to Ireland, it's that Ireland's tax rules let it suck out the tax revenue from work, production and sales that occur across Europe. Ireland isn't getting a £1bn new Google office - London is - but the UK will see no corporate tax revenue from the products those people develop.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> The problem facing other European economies is not that large amounts of actual economic activity is moving to Ireland, it's that Ireland's tax rules let it suck out the tax revenue from work, production and sales that occur across Europe. They wouldn't if they would actually tax work, production and sales that occur in their jurisdiction. This whole game works by assigning a jurisdiction to "profit" independent of those things, when profit is an accounting fiction. Unlike customers or employees, it has no physical existence, so it's easy for companies to arrange for it to be wherever it's most advantageous. If you want to tax companies for employing or selling to your people, you can perfectly well have a payroll tax or sales tax.