Category: Fiscal Policy

SGP Revised – again

The latest playbook for the Stability and Growth Pact has been published by the European Commission.  Here is a link to the document along with two related press releases.

We now have this little matrix:

The Commission’s methodology puts Ireland’s output gap at close to zero so we are in “Normal times".  With public debt above 60 per cent of GDP this means that an improvement of greater than 0.5 per cent of GDP in the structural balance is required.

The numbers released with October’s budget would suggest that Ireland is on schedule to achieve this.

This shows an average annual improvement in the structural balance out to 2018 of just over 1.0 per cent of GDP. But these numbers come with a massive health warning.  The projections in the outlook are set in terms of the following qualification:

As there are still uncertainties with regard to the interpretation and implementation of the fiscal rules, there is a technical assumption that voted expenditure ceilings remain fixed at 2015 levels. Similarly, taxation measures for the outer years are not embedded in the budgetary numbers at this stage.  Priorities, which have been outlined in the Budget and Expenditure Report, will be addressed in subsequent Budgets when there is technical clarity around the quantum of fiscal space.

So no provision has been made for the promised tax cuts and expenditure increases that are being wheeled out on a regular basis.

The Commission document has lots of stuff on how they intend to account for the unknown impact of future reform measures on the unknowable structural balance. If there are going to be new caveats and qualifications every time a country is close to breaching the rules there is a risk that the SGP might become complicated!

From Ireland’s perspective it must be realised that while rules can be good they can never be perfect and there appears to be a risk that our fiscal policy becomes fixated on doing just enough to satisfy the SGP rules.  There are frequent references to the amount of “fiscal space” that is available.  This will be set relative to the Expenditure Benchmark which is likely to get increased attention when we become subject to it in 2016 upon leaving the EDP.

However, with a continuing deficit and a debt north of 100 per cent of GDP there is close to no fiscal space.  In the run-up to the crisis Ireland’s budgets satisfied the rules that were in place at the time. We reached and then stayed at the MTO of a balanced budget but that was no protection against the budgetary collapse that occurred. 

The updated rules might be better but there is no evidence that they are a panacea. If they were they wouldn’t need constant updating.

Barking up the wrong Apple tree

There is lots of excitement this morning about a story in the Financial Times about the European Commission state-aid investigation into Apple’s tax arrangements in Ireland. The story first appeared online under the headline “Apple hit by Brussels finding over illegal Irish tax deals”. When put on the front page of today’s print edition the headline was “Apple hit by Brussels findings over Irish backroom tax deals”. The story begins:

Apple will be accused of prospering from illegal tax deals with the Irish government for more than two decades when Brussels this week unveils details of a probe that could leave the iPhone maker with a record fine of as much as several billions of euros.

Preliminary findings from the European Commission’s investigation into Apple’s tax affairs in Ireland, where it has had a rate of less than 2 per cent, claim the Silicon Valley company benefited from illicit state aid after striking backroom deals with Ireland’s authorities, according to people involved in the case.

The headline and story resulted in widespread opprobrium from the usual sources being directed at Ireland. The reality is that the headline is nonsense and the presentation of the story in the text was misleading (at best). Anyone with even a summary understanding of the issue would immediately see that, but there are plenty who love jumping to and jumping on adverse conclusions about Ireland’s corporation tax regime.

The errors include:

  • there are no “fines” in state-aid cases
  • the case does not involve “billions of euros”
  • there are no “preliminary findings”
  • there is no “rate of less than 2 per cent”

And that’s just the first two paragraphs!

At present Apple pays very little corporate income tax on its profit earned on sales made outside the US. These profits will be taxed based on the source-location of the risks, assets and functions from which the profits are derived. The risks, assets and functions that generate Apple’s profits are mainly in the US and under current rules the US is granted the taxing right for the bulk of Apple’s profits. The fact that the US allows Apple to defer the payment of this tax until the profits are transferred to a US-incorporated company is a matter for the US.

Sometimes we tend to use the word “repatriate” when it comes to these profits. But Apple’s non-US profits don’t have to be repatriated to the US; they go there directly and there is no stop-off in Ireland. Yes, Apple’s non-US profits are accumulated in Irish-incorporated companies but almost everything about these companies happens in the US.  Using US rules, Apple was able to create this situation and maintain that these companies did not have a taxable presence in the US.  The EC investigation will examine none of the headline issues about these companies highlighted in the US Senate Report last May.

The EC can only investigate the taxing of activity that happens in Ireland and decisions that are made in Ireland. In its June announcement, the EC said the Irish element of its investigation relates to:

the individual rulings issued by the Irish tax authorities on the calculation of the taxable profit allocated to the Irish branches of Apple Sales International and of Apple Operations Europe;

It is the profit attributed to just the Irish branches of the companies that is in question not the entire profits of these companies. In his opening statement to the US Senate hearing last May, Sen. Carl Levin (D) said:

Continue reading “Barking up the wrong Apple tree”

Quarterly National Accounts

The Q2 National Accounts and Balance of Payments updates have been published by the CSO.

The quarterly changes will attract plenty of attention but little can be judged from them given the volatility of the series, the possibility of revisions and the impact of the MNC and IFSC sectors.

Quarterly Changes: GDP +1.5%; GNP +0.6%

More significantly perhaps are the year-on-year changes for the first six months of the year. 

  • Real GDP (2012 prices)
  • H1 2013: €85,163m
  • H1 2014: €90,069m

That is an annual increase of 5.8%.  For GNP the equivalent change is +6.0%. Wow!

Value added increased in all sectors when compared with H1 2013: (% = real annual growth, € = amount in 2012 prices)

  • Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries: +11.9% to €2.45bn
  • Industry: +0.7% to €22.52bn
    • with Building and Construction: +8.3% to €1.51bn
  • Distribution, Transport, Communications and Software: +10.9% to €20.35bn
  • Public Administration and Defence: +3.7% to €3.22bn
  • Other Services (including implied rent): +3.3% to €33.90bn
  • Taxes on goods/services less subsidies: +9.8% to €8.31bn

For fiscal rules junkies, nominal GDP for H1 2014 is €90.2 billion.  Last April’s Stability Programme Update had a forecast of nominal GDP in 2014 of €168.4 billion.  The methodological revisions completed by the CSO over the summer and the recent growth mean that a nominal GDP of around €180 billion is now likely this year.  Sticking with the Department’s 3.6% nominal growth projection for next year gives a 2015 figure of €186.5 billion.  These increases in the denominator will significantly improve the appearance of fiscal ratios.

Although net exports increased and contributed around 40% of the increase in GDP the remainder is due to domestic demand.  Real total domestic demand in H1 2014 is 4.0% up on the equivalent period in 2013.  Although all components are up (consumption +1.2%, government expenditure +5.2%) much of the increase is driven by investment which is up 11.3% year-on-year.  In recent years much of the volatility in this component has been the result of aircraft purchases by leasing companies based in Ireland.

The current account of the Balance of Payments shows a surplus of 4.3% of GDP for H1 2014 compared to one of 2.5% of GDP for H1 2013.

Balanced budget tax cuts

In his press conference yesterday, Mario Draghi said the following:

Within the Stability and Growth Pact, one could do things that are growth-friendly and also would contribute to budget consolidation, and I gave an example of a balanced budget tax cut. Reducing taxes that are especially distortionary, where the short-term multipliers could be higher, and cutting expenditure in the most unproductive parts, so mostly, actually not mostly, entirely, current government expenditure.

There are at least three possible interpretations of this statement.

1. Draghi genuinely thinks that balanced budget multipliers are negative, which I find hard to believe. A balanced budget tax cut under current circumstances would be contractionary, not expansionary; at least, that is what we teach our students.

2. Draghi genuinely thinks that the Eurozone’s problems right now are on the supply side, and that tax cuts will help address these problems. I also find that hard to believe. The major problems facing the Eurozone right now are pretty clearly on the demand side.

3. Despite its nominal independence, the ECB is in fact the most politically constrained of the major central banks. If Draghi is going to push the ECB towards QE, and question the overall fiscal stance of the Eurozone, he has to come out with this sort of stuff from time to time, to appease the Germans.

I find the last of these three explanations entirely plausible, and it helps explain the ECB’s poor performance in the crisis to date. But why should a nominally independent central bank feel that its hand are tied in this way? Ultimately, perhaps, because the Eurozone is not a political union, and because democratic legitimacy resides at the level of the member states. This means that exit from the Eurozone is always an option, even if it is not openly acknowledged.

Another reason to think that monetary union without political union is a bad idea.

Stability Programme Update

A DoF presentation with some of the key forecasts in the SPU is available here. There is also a press release.

The full text is here.