EASY TO PAY TAX HERE - The World Bank says it is easy to pay tax in Ireland. In fact for the second year in a row, Ireland is the easiest country in Europe in which to pay tax and sixth easiest country in the world. The report from the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers examines tax regimes in 178 countries. While we are top in Europe, we are beaten in world terms by the Maldives, Singapore, Hong Kong and Oman.
Colm Kelly, a tax leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says it is very important that Ireland is seen as an easy place to pay tax as it proves extremely attractive to foreign companies deciding to invest in a country. He says the Irish authorities deserve a great deal of praise for the tax regime here and he says that the system is monitored very well.
In defining the rankings, the World Bank looks at the total number of tax payments which a business has to make in a particular year, the amount of time it take to comply and the total tax burden of a company. He says their are risks to Irish's tax reputation. The EU is working on a project called the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base, which proposes a Europe-wide system of calculating business profits for tax profits.
He said that if that proposal were to make progress, it would introduce a new layer of complexity and administration on top of all the systems that we have. It would increase the tax burden and costs for business in Europe and in Ireland. 'It would be bad for business, bad for Ireland and bad for the EU,' Mr Kelly states.
On the Budget, Mr Kelly says he would like to see Finance Minister Brian Cowen improve the tax treatment of dividends for business purposes, which would bring us in line with the offering that many of our competitor countries have.
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MORNING BRIEFS - US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said yesterday that he hoped to have a mortgage relief plan ready by the end of the week and urged Congress to give local governments more borrowing power to ward off foreclosures.
*** Tesco met forecasts with a 4.1% rise in underlying third-quarter UK sales and said its new US stores had been 'very well received' by customers. The supermarket group, which runs over 3,200 stores across the world and opened its first shop in the US last month, said total group sales rose 11.8% in the 13 weeks to November 24.
*** Andor Technology has announced pre-tax profits of £1.35m sterling for the year ended September 30, an increase of 2.7% over last year. Revenues at the company, which produces high performance digital cameras, were up over 10% to £21.3m. Operating profits were up marginally to €1.42m.
*** A survey from EU statistics office Eurostat places Ireland 17th out of the 27 countries in the EU for broadband access. Despite significant improvements in the last year the survey shows that just under a third, or 31% of Irish homes are using high speed internet services. This compares to 17% last year. Home broadband access in Latvia is 32%, and in Slovenia it Is 44%, while the highest ranked countries are Denmark and the Netherlands, at over 70%.
*** Riverdeep, the education media and publishing company led by Barry O'Callaghan and now known as EPMG, has sold its college textbook division for over €500m and plans to use the money reducing its debt. It Is thought the company is making a profit of 30% on the sale, and the deal will allow it cut its €5 billion debt by 10%.
*** Morans, the hotel group that owns Dublin's Red Cow, the Silver Springs in Cork and the Crown in Cricklewood, has bought the Bewleys chain of hotels from Bert Allen's Slaney Meats for up to €500m. There are six Bewleys hotels, the Irish ones based in Ballsbridge, Leopardstown and Newlands Cross and Dublin Airport. The chain also has hotels at Manchester Airport and in Leeds.Together Bewley's hotels have just over 2,000 bedrooms.
*** Reflecting growth in the sector and labour shortages, pay in financial services is set to rise by 5.5% cent next year, according to Mercer Investment Consulting, with fund managers topping the pay-rise league.
*** This morning oil is up to $89.72 a barrel after Libya's top oil official said that the oil market 'is very well supplied' and does not need more production from OPEC.
*** On the currency markets the euro is trading at $1.4660 and 71 pence sterling.
