The Celtic Paper Tiger

Published by Global Britain

Global Britain has released my report on the degree to which the economy of the Republic of Ireland is dominated by activities that reduce the tax bills of foreign multinationals.

You can download the report here.

The report dissects the two elements of tax-sparing activities:

the re-invoicing through Ireland of goods made elsewhere and services […]

Payment technocrats have crippled EU’s ability to impose biting sanctions on Russia

Original IREF article of 16 March 2022 accessed on 21 March 2022

Published on 23 March 2022

The EU recently announced partial financial sanctions on Russia, designed to keep payments for energy moving. The EU accepted the contention – disproved below – that a bank either gets cut off from SWIFT, the global financial telecommunications network, completely […]

Rishi Sunak’s minimum 15% global corporation tax rate may have failed, but the Kremlin has stuck the boot in (inadvertently)

Original Brexit-Watch.org article

Published on 18 March 2022

Our Brexit-Watch.org article last week showed how tax-leveraged leasing through Ireland was a major contributor to the BigTech and Biotech companies minimizing their corporation tax payments:https://www.brexit-watch.org/irelands-fear-of-depending-on-foreign-companies-tax-receipts-is-unfounded-for-the-wrong-reasonsWhilst Rishi Sunak’s much-trumpeted minimum 15% global corporation tax rate won’t have any effect at all, the Kremlin has intervened by passing a law […]

UK adopts European approach to SWIFT sanctions over Russia

Brexit-Watch article where this piece was originally published

Published on 7 March 2022

The UK’s financial sanctions over the Ukraine invasion fall well short of cutting Russia off SWIFT, maxing out on the usual self-congratulatory hyperbole whilst opening up significant risk. When we should be distinguishing our PR approach from that of the Kremlin, we instead get […]

Scholz needs a SWIFT decision – cut Russia off or lose American bank support for the Eurosystem

What is SWIFT? Screenshot of its homepage

Published on 26 February 2022

As already published on Facts4EU and Brexit-Watch

It has been reported that Chancellor Scholz has rejected the proposal that Russia be cut off from the SWIFT system as a punishment for its invasion of Ukraine. The Guardian has disseminated misinformation that it would anyway do little […]