Ireland taxes multinational companies at a higher rate than most other countries in the EU. Hold that thought for a moment and, if it jars with your understanding of reality, rest assured we are about to robustly back up our assertion. It certainly jars with the allegation, repeated by Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, at Davos last week, likening Ireland to a tax haven.
When it comes to how individuals pay tax most intelligent people know that the marginal rate is unimportant. A single person in Ireland on €33,800 may pay a marginal tax rate of 52 per cent on their income but, after allowances and reliefs, their tax bill only amounts to 20 per cent of their gross pay.
The same is true