The Annual Conference of the Economic and Social History Society of Ireland is being held in NUI Galway on Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd of November, convened by Niall Ó Ciosáin and Caitríona Clear.
Registration/booking information and the conference programe are available at:
http://eshsigalway2013.wordpress.com/
The Society’s main web page is here.
Using standard provisions in tax codes internet companies face low or no corporation tax bills in the countries of their customers. This issue has been repeatedly raised in the UK by Margaret Hodge, chair of the Westminster Public Accounts Committee. In relation to Google in particular much of the focus has been on whether Google has a permanent establishment in the UK.
This issue is also agitating the chair of the Italian lower house Budget Committee, Francesco Boccia, who has drafted a bill to try and force companies like Google to engage with their customers in Italy through a party that has a permanent establishment in Italy. See this report from Reuters.
The proposal would not tax the multinationals directly but would force them to use Italian companies to place their advertisements, rather than doing so through third parties based in low-tax countries like Luxembourg, Ireland or outside the European Union.
Doubts about the feasibility of such a proposal seem justified but it does show someone trying to take some action on this issue.
All the documents can be accessed from here.
The main figures for Ireland (“rebalancing on track”) are:
Among Euroarea countries six are expected to face a BoP current account deficit in 2014: Estonia, Greece, France, Cyprus, Latvia and Finland. The largest deficit is expected to be in Estonia at 2.2% of GDP. On the other side Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovenia will have a current account surplus of more than 6% of GDP. The first three will have three-year averages greater than the 6% of GDP threshold set out in the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure. In aggregate the euroarea is projected to have a current acount surplus of around 3% of GDP for the next two years.
The Spanish public deficit is forecast to increase to 6.5% of GDP in 2015 with France, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia also projected to have deficits in 2015 over the 3% of GDP threshold for the Excessive Deficit Procedure. In aggregate the Euroarea is expected to run a public deficit of around 2.5% of GDP for the next two years with public debt steady at around 95% of GDP.
Leaving aside the empirical question of what it is that, in fact, leads to universities having international “brand recognition”, I would be very curious to know how much the “review of its brand” that Trinity is apparently engaged in is costing the university in these difficult times.
The opening address at the Irish Labour History Society Annual Conference delivered by Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton is available here.