alt Hacker NewsThat the GDP stats are skewed but the taxes aren't there. So it looks as if Ireland is doing much better on paper than what is happening in reality. Normally with that kind of GDP you'd also have a solid tax base to go with it, here it is the opposite, Ireland has that GDP because their corporate taxes were super low.
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> Normally with that kind of GDP you'd also have a solid tax base to go with it, here it is the opposite
You are badly misinformed. The Irish state is actually in receipt of colossal quantities of corporate tax each year, which has placed it in a significantly stronger fiscal position than most other EU nations.
Whether this state of affairs is sustainable in the longer term is another question, but for the last ten years or so, the strategy of encouraging FDI has unquestionably paid off extremely well.
Yeah, I mean, all the city-states on this list are playing this game too - Monaco, Lichtenstein, and Luxembourg aren't paradises for the poor either.