In their conclusions, the authors recommend Northern Ireland – which remains relatively poor and heavily reliant on public sector spending and employment – embark on major reforms to improve its residents’ standard of living.
“Even though Ireland has a much higher national income, funding the needs of the people of Northern Ireland in a united Ireland would put huge financial pressure on the people of Ireland, resulting in an immediate major reduction in their living standards,” the report says.
(Please forgive me if this is ignorant. I don’t know much about Irish politics)
Doesn’t the Republic of Ireland have a lot of multinational businesses headquartered there as a tax dodge?
Perhaps they could make the mega corps pay their fair share of taxes and use that to fund reunification
They would just move to the next tax haven, taking their jobs with them. Even if they raised taxes below the next haven, many would move out of spite.
You know, any time I hear an argument like this as a reason against making corporations pay their fair share, my response is always, “So what? Fuck em.”
Like…let them go. Something else will take their place. Regardless, you’re getting nothing out of them in the way of a responsible presence in the economic community, so even if they just leave and that’s it, it’s one less evening leech taking advantage of the situation.
There aren’t that many jobs attached to those headquarters, they’re mostly there on paper. It’s mostly about the taxes, which, although comparatively low, amount to a lot of revenue for the State.
That might be true for Luxembourg but not for Ireland.
All US big techs have pretty big hubs in Dublin, with engineers.
This is kinda true at the margins but people massively overstate the mobility of big businesses.