A delegation of economists from IBEC and the Irish Bankers Federation yesterday met the EU's Taxation Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs at the invitation of Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan.
The commissioner told the group he hoped to bring out a legislative proposal next year on harmonising the corporate tax base - which is the method used to calculate what constitutes a company's taxable earnings.
In the EU there are 27 different corporate tax bases, making it more costly for companies like multinationals to compile their tax returns. These costs would fall if, like the US, there was one tax base.
The commission argues it would also increase transparency in compering national tax regimes. Like the US, individual member states would be free to set their own tax rates.
But there is a proposed mechanism to share tax revenues between states, by applying tax where the business transaction takes place, not where the business is headquartered. For multinationals based in Ireland, this would mean a company selling goods in to Europe would pay part of its tax in the state to which the goods were being sold.
IBEC says this is bad for a small exporting state like Ireland, which would lose a chunk tax revenue.
