The Irish Ambassador to the United States has moved to reassure American multinational companies that the Irish corporate tax rate will not change in light of the release of the first OECD report on how multinational companies' and taxation.
Anne Anderson was speaking at a seminar organised by the American National Foreign Trade Council in Washington DC to discuss investment into Ireland.
The President of the National Foreign Trade Council, Bill Reinsch said that Ireland faces a significant challenge with the BEPS reports.
However a vice president of IBM - which employs 4,000 people in Ireland - said the company was not concerned about the OECD report's recommendations and that it would not impact its operations in Ireland.
Chris Padilla said that IBM used 15 criteria when deciding where to locate its operations and tax was only one of those.
He warned however that Ireland needed to be careful that BEPS did not turn into a “fancy term” that allowed uncompetitive economies to talk competitive economies into raising their tax rate.
Ambassador Anne Anderson said Ireland was committed to the 12.5% tax rate, adding that it was Ireland's sovereign right to set its own tax rate.
She said the BEPS recommendations would be considered by the Government.
Referring to criticism of the Irish tax regime, she said that Ireland played fair but it played to win, which she said was not only the Irish way of doing things, but also the American way of doing things.
She said that Ireland had been very much part of the BEPS experience and was happy to push forward on multinational tax reform.
Ms Anderson was asked by a representative from Coca Cola what impact the BEPS reports would have on Irish tax policy for multinationals like her own company.
Ms Anderson replied that Ireland had been enthusiastic participants in the process and that it was still a work in progress, and that only half of the working groups had so far reported.
She said Ireland would carefully study the reports and take a decision on implementation as required, and that Ireland would get the views of stakeholders and likely outcomes.
