Nimrod103 wrote:We have been and remain in tax competition with countries like the RoI, which have succeeded in stealing companies from the UK. We should be lowering CT not raising it.
For Luxembourg and Ireland much of their GDP is a function of being a low tax EU region that enables the large Techie stocks low cost (tax) access to the rest of the EU. Sooner or later the EU will look to 'more fairly tax' (a.k.a more highly tax) those techies such as Amazon etc. perhaps via some kind of transactions taxation.
Services are less constrained by geographic boundaries, legal advice or accounts preparation can flow via emails for instance that traverse geographic boundaries freely. If a tax report preparer in Ireland is £20 cheaper than one in the UK then I'm more inclined to go with the lower cost choice ... or if the other way around. For goods however more likely when a EU based delivery it would be cheaper to utilise a entity within the EU than outside of the EU. NI however is still in the EU for goods and as such could offer great opportunities for it to steal business from Ireland, especially as for services it may have lower costs such as provided by the rest of the UK. Imagine a manufacturer that buys a plot of land that spans both NI and Ireland. That would be strongly placed to source and supply either side using the lower cost choices from/to either side, a distinct advantage compared to a entity purely located in one or the other region alone. Firms will naturally exploit cost/tax efficiencies. For instance multi-national fund managers may 'lend' stock to others internally where those others can receive dividends more tax efficiently. Similarly I see great potential for Dublin based business being transitioned more to/across the NI/Ireland borderline. A gateway spanning both the UK and EU single markets.
The EU is inefficient. Interest rate policies etc. set across 27 different conflicts of interests, that fit none well (other than Germany who predominately dictate the policies). UK policies are much more refined/advantageous and along with the NI/Ireland UK/EU gateway the UK is very well placed. Whether UK CT should be raised or lowered is for the experts to determine/set and that's not just a straight comparison measure.