PROFITS SURGE SEES 16,000 MORE COMPANIES PAY CORPORATION TAX - 16,000 additional firms paid corporation tax last year, adding €470m to the total raised.
More firms paid the tax because profits rose across the economy, according to new figures from the Revenue Commissioners. The figures providing fresh insight into the surge in corporation tax that helped lift the Exchequer last year, including a falling reliance on multinationals. The chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Niall Cody, said an analysis by Revenue shows that the main factor driving the increase in tax receipts in 2015 "is likely to be increased profitability". Last year's corporation tax net receipts of €6.87 billion were 49% ahead of the previous year's tally and 50% ahead of budget forecasts, the Irish Independent writes. In a letter to Finance Minister Michael Noonan dated April 26, and released following a Freedom of Information request, Mr Cody said the increase in the tax take is explained by a number of factors. These include balances associated with earlier accounting periods in 2015, more tax paid by companies that already paid the tax and a new cohort of tax payers.
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COMREG UNDER FIRE FOR FAILING TO RULE ON EIR'S €50m USO CLAIM - Telecoms regulator ComReg has come under fire for failing to rule on whether Eir should be compensated for its universal service obligation (USO).
The company wants the cost of providing rural phone services, which it estimates to be about €10 million a year, shared among providers, says the Irish Times. In 2014, it lodged a series of retrospective funding claims, dating back to 2010 and totalling €50 million, with ComReg. However, the regulator has still not determined whether the USO constitutes an unfair financial burden on the former semi-State company and if rivals should shoulder some of the cost. Non-Eir operators claim ComReg’s failure to adjudicate leaves an uncertainty hanging over the industry and their operating costs. Ronan Lupton of Alto, the umbrella group for non-Eir firms, said: “It’s extremely disappointing, although not surprising, that ComReg is yet again failing to make any headway on the funding/sharing mechanism, or a declaration of unfair or fair burden on Eir.” Eir recoups part of the connection costs via line rental charges but insists the the overall costs should be more evenly shared, particularly when customers can opt for different service providers once connected.
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GERMAN AUTOMATION TECH FIRM PILZ TO BUILD NEW RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTRE - German automation technology company, Pilz, has acquired a 3,000 square metre site adjacent to its existing Cork facility.
This will allow it to significantly expand its Irish operations. The company, based in the Cork Business and Technology Park, on Cork’s Model Farm Road, has been in Ireland since 1998. It will use the new facility to expand its office and laboratory space to meet growing demand for its services, says the Irish Examiner. The company is planning to begin construction on the site of a new facility to accommodate the Software product research-and-development centre, a global centre of excellence to configure and programme intelligent automation systems. The expansion is anticipated to result in an increase in the numbers of staff at Pilz Ireland, which currently employs 170.
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GOLDMAN SACHS TO DROP ON-CAMPUS INTERVIEWS - Goldman Sachs is abandoning the time-honoured practice of on-campus interviews for undergraduates at elite schools and will now ask students to use pre-recorded interviews to pitch for a job at the bank.
The Wall Street bank announced the new initiative on Thursday along with a range of other innovations it says will make its recruitment more consistent and rigorous, says the Financial Times. “The number one priority is how do we find more terrific people that are potential candidates for the firm,” said Edith Cooper, global head of human capital management at the bank. “Leveraging technology will help you get to more places.” Goldman attracts more than 250,000 applications from students annually, including almost 225,000 from undergraduates. But more than half of the undergraduates it traditionally hires comes from a group of less than 50 “target” schools, including prestigious Ivy League colleges. Under the new approach, candidates from any school will instead use a pre-recorded interview programme called HireVue, which JPMorgan uses in its retail bank. The bank will then invite second-round candidates to a ‘structured interview’ where questions will be more prescriptive to allow for candidates responses to be more easily benchmarked against each other.
