Is Stormont fit to take the gamble on a lower corporation tax?

The economist James Stewart of Trinity College Dublin  has revealed details of the extent of legal tax dodging  (£) involved in the Republic’s tax much vaunted 12.5% business tax rate in the Financial Times He argues that  the Republic’s government seems not be aware that a vast quantity of profits  are not subject to corporation tax anywhere in the world because of “double Irish” tax strategies. This dodge means that two Irish companies, one of which makes sales to customers and pays …

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Corporation Tax powers finally set to be devolved?

The Belfast Telegraph has a number of articles about the devolution of control over Corporation Tax: with a timeline here. From the Belfast Telegraph: Finance Minister Simon Hamilton said: “I am optimistic that we will get a positive answer from the Prime Minister. “I think that the Government wants to do this and we have made a very robust case to them.” A senior Tory source concurred with this assessment. However, the cost of cutting the tax is likely to …

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Sir George Quigley

  The sudden death at 83 of Sir George Quigley is a reminder of the underappreciated value of the really top class civil servant.  No faceless bureaucrat during the long years of Direct Rule at the department of finance and elsewhere, he had an equally beneficial afterlife in the public and private sectors, serving among other posts  as chairman of the Ulster Bank and Bombardier locally. Personally he was a warm hearted and easy communicator and a liberal minded Presbyterian …

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