Ireland’s devil a bit tech oversight
HAVENS ARE ABOUT MORE THAN TAX
Last week, I talked about tax havens, and how they appear spontaneously; in a similar way to how my dog appears spontaneously whenever I sit down to eat. Thinking about it though, I wish there was a term for these places other than “tax haven,” because they are about so much more than tax. The Tax Justice Network calls them “secrecy jurisdictions,” which is good, but that doesn’t go far enough either.
The most successful havens provide all the services that the rich and powerful want, whether that’s shielding them from scrutiny, selling them fine art, helping them evade justice, and more. And in that context, I am fascinated by a legal challenge being brought by Irish Council for Civil Liberties, which reveals a hidden side to Ireland’s highly successful career as a haven for giant U.S. companies looking for a comfortable base in the European Union. Dublin has previously fought off attempts by the European Commission to make it impose higher tax bills on Apple and other large tech companies, but now it appears to be using rather sneakier techniques to stop them having to obey EU rules.
The EU has sought to provide the world’s strongest regulation on tech companies, with its flagship General Data Protection Regulation designed to give individuals control over their own data. The bloc might not have created many tech giants, but at least it could make sure consumers wouldn’t be harmed by anyone else’s. Or at least that was the theory.
There is a flaw, however, which is that enforcement of the GDPR depends on national level regulators. And that means its fate is in the hands of an Irish government that has built an entire generations-long development model on giving U.S. corporations and the tech oligarchs exactly what they want, and resisting pressure from foreigners to make them hand over a penny.