And more than 45pc of those royalty payments went to “offshore financial centres”, the European Commission said in its annual report on taxation 2021. The Netherlands had the second-highest level of outgoing royalty payments, at around 6pc of GDP. Data on how much of that money was sent to offshore tax havens was not available. The findings come the day after the EU published a corporate tax roadmap that it hopes will end harmful tax competition within the EU. Ireland has the lowest overall tax to GDP ratio in the EU, at 22.1pc, compared to an EU average of over 40pc.

Source: Irish Independent May 20, 2021 01:30 UTC