Google Warns Irish Government Against Tax Increase

theodp writes "The Irish government has been given a stark warning from some of the biggest American companies in Ireland on the risk of a mass exodus if the country's controversial low corporate tax rate is raised in return for an IMF/EU bailout to shore up the country's beleaguered banking system. According to The Telegraph, a statement signed by senior execs at Microsoft, HP, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Intel points out that although Ireland's tax rate may be low in European terms, it is not when compared with locations such as Singapore, India and China. Separately, the head of Google's 2,000-strong European HQ in Dublin told the Belfast Telegraph, 'anything that impinges on Ireland's competitiveness is going to be a big thing for Google,' adding, 'anything that increases the cost-base of a business is negative for competitiveness.'"

Comments

Re:Of course...

[visualight]

I argue there was no middle class in the 19th century, but I'm sure we disagree on the definition of middle class. There were some robber barons surrounded by a small group of bourgeoisie, but the vast majority of the population were subsistence farmers or wage slaves in factories. It wasn't until the end of WWII that a real middle class existed.

It's true there was income tax after the FED was created, but laborers wages weren't taxed then as wages aren't real income. Only 'professionals' were taxed. Taxes on wages started after the ND.

The reason US economy was as successful as it was after the WWII was due to the fact US infrastructure wasn't destroyed in the war *and* that there was an educated, healthy middle class that could not only work in factories, but could also afford to purchase the goods produced in them. If not for the ND, that middle class would not have existed, nor would the post WWII prosperity you describe.

Education, health care, unemployment insurance, and pensions are necessary to maintain a healthy middle class, and this middle class is just as crucial to the overall economy as physical infrastructure. Without these social programs, or direct incentives for the capitalists to provide these things, the middle class as we know it now will cease to exist. A tax policy of only sales tax doesn't provide these incentives.

If you could describe an economy where the rules of the market provide for the health and maintenance (by this I mean education, health care, unemployment insurance, and pensions) of the middle class, people like me would engage more enthusiastically. The economy of the 19th century was Hell for the vast majority and I am not in a hurry to live like most people of my class did back then.

My position is not that lazy people should get free money, but that an illness or temporary unemployment should not be a disaster. It is unrealistic to say these people should provide their own hedges against these eventualities, or that they should have the intelligence and discipline to provide for their own pensions. Really, if most of the population were so capable, then most of the population would refuse to be mere laborers for the capitalists...

There are four overall premises I am making that you would have to defeat to change my mind about any of this:

1)A healthy middle class is a critical component to the larger economy, just as important as any infrastructure component.
2)The owners of production desire that most of this class be educated enough to work for them, but not so educated as to feel above their roles.
3)Given (2) above, this class will not have the capacity to provide for their pensions on their own, nor be able to adequately hedge against temporary setbacks.
4)The owners of production will not provide those items described in (3) above without direct and immediate incentives to do so.