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{{short description|Irish corporate tax avoidance tool}}{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2023}}{{Use Hiberno-English|date=March 2023}}{{broader|Ireland as a tax haven}}File:International Financial Services Centre, Dublin.jpg|thumb|International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), centre of US multinational tax planning in Ireland]]{{Taxation}}The Double Irish arrangement was a base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) corporate tax avoidance tool used mostly by United States multinationals since the late 1980s to avoid corporate taxation on non-U.S. profits.{{efn|name="mistake"|The Double Irish is sometimes misunderstood as being only used for EU–sourced revenues and business. For example, in 2016, Facebook recorded global revenues of $27 billion, while Facebook in Ireland paid €30 million in Irish tax on Irish revenues of €13 billion (approximately half of all global revenues).NEWS,weblink Facebook paid just €30m tax in Ireland despite earning €12bn, Irish Independent, Adrian Weckler, 29 November 2017, 23 April 2018,weblink 21 April 2018, live, Similarly, when the EU introduced the GDPR regulations in 2018, Facebook disclosed that all of its non-U.S. accounts (circa 1.9 billion, of which 1.5 billion were non-E.U), were legally based in Dublin.NEWS,weblink Exclusive: Facebook to put 1.5 billion users out of reach of new EU privacy law, Reuters, David Ingram, 18 April 2018, 23 April 2018,weblink 23 April 2018, live, Similarly, Google is also believed to run most of its non–U.S. sales revenue and profits through its Dublin operation.NEWS,weblink Google pays €47m in tax in Ireland on €22bn sales revenue, The Guardian, Simon Bowers, 4 November 2016, 23 April 2018,weblink 5 April 2018, live, WEB,weblink Google booked 41% of global revenues in Ireland in 2012; A leprechaun's gold?, Finfacts.ie, 30 September 2013, 6 November 2018,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20171213171339weblink">weblink 13 December 2017, live, }} (The US was one of a small number of countries that did not use a "territorial" tax system, and taxed corporations on all profits, no matter whether the profit was made outside the US or not, in contrast to "territorial" tax systems which tax only profits made within that country.){{efn|name="worldwide"}} It was the largest tax avoidance tool in history and by 2010 was shielding US$100 billion annually in US multinational foreign profits from taxation,{{efn|Before the US 2017 TCJA repatriation tax, the Double Irish shielded all non–US profits of US multinationals from: (a) taxation in the end-consumer market, (b) from taxation in Ireland, and (c) from US taxation. The 2017 TCJA placed a 15.5% US tax on these untaxed profits, and they were deemed to be automatically repatriated (regardless of whether the US multinational wanted to repatriate the untaxed profits or not).}} and was the main tool by which US multinationals built up untaxed offshore reserves of US$1 trillion from 2004 to 2018.{{efn|name="bush"}}{{efn|name="bush2"}} Traditionally, it was also used with the Dutch Sandwich BEPS tool; however, 2010 changes to tax laws in Ireland dispensed with this requirement.File:Michael Noonan (official portrait).jpg|thumb|Former Finance Minister Michael Noonan closed the Double Irish BEPS tool to new entrants in October 2014 (existing schemes to close by 2020), but expanded the CAIA BEPS tool as a replacement in 2011–2016, and infamously told an Irish MEP who alerted him to the Single Malt BEPS tool, to "put on the green jerseyput on the green jerseyDespite US knowledge of the Double Irish for a decade, it was the European Commission that in October 2014 forced Ireland to close the scheme, starting in January 2015. However, users of existing schemes, such as Apple, Google, Facebook and Pfizer, were given until January 2020 to close them. At the announcement of the closure it was known that multinationals had replacement BEPS tools in Ireland, the Single Malt (2014), and Capital Allowances for Intangible Assets (CAIA) (2009):{{ordered list|type=lower-roman|Single malt is almost identical to the Double Irish, and was identified with Microsoft (LinkedIn), and Allergan in 2017;|CAIA can provide up to twice the tax shield of Single Malt, or Double Irish, and was identified with Apple in the 2015 leprechaun economics affair.}}US tax academics showed as long ago as 1994 that US multinational use of tax havens and BEPS tools had maximised long-term US Treasury receipts. They showed that multinationals from "territorial" tax systems, which all but a handful of countries follow,{{efn|name="worldwide"}} did not use BEPS tools, or tax havens, including those that had recently switched, such as Japan (2009), and the UK (2009–12). By 2018, tax academics showed US multinationals were the largest users of BEPS tools and Ireland was the largest global BEPS hub or tax haven. They showed that US multinationals represented the largest component of the Irish economy and that Ireland had failed to attract multinationals from "territorial" tax systems.{{efn|name="taxhaven"|It is believed that Ireland's extreme economic exposure to US corporate BEPS activity had led Ireland to expand into more traditional tax haven–type tools, such as the Qualifying investor alternative investment fund (QIAIF) (designed to compete with the Cayman Islands SPC), and the Irish Section 110 Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) (designed to compete with the Luxembourg SPV).NEWS, Ireland enjoys tax boom but fears a reckoning: Dublin concerned about reliance on revenue from small group of multinational companies,weblink Financial Times, Arthur Beesley, 31 January 2018, 26 September 2018,weblink 5 July 2018, live, }}The United States switched to a "territorial" tax system in the December 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act ("TCJA"), causing American tax academics to forecast the demise of Irish BEPS tools and Ireland as an American corporate tax haven. However, by mid-2018, other tax academics, including the IMF, noted that technical flaws in the TCJA had increased the attractiveness of Ireland's BEPS tools, and the CAIA BEPS tool in particular, which post-TCJA, delivered a total effective tax rate ("ETR") of 0–2.5% on profits that can be fully repatriated to the US without incurring any additional US taxation. In July 2018, one of Ireland's leading tax economists forecasted a "boom" in the use of the Irish CAIA BEPS tool as US multinationals close existing Double Irish BEPS schemes before the 2020 deadline.

{{anchor|Double Irish}}{{anchor|Explanation of Double Irish}}Double Irish

{{see also|Corporate haven#IP-based BEPS tools}}

Concept and origin (1991)

{{See also|Base erosion and profit shifting}}The Double Irish is an IP–based BEPS tool. Under OECD rules, corporations with intellectual property ("IP"), which are mostly technology and life sciences firms, can turn this into an intangible asset ("IA") on their balance sheet, and charge it out as a tax-deductible royalty payment to end-customers. Without such IP, if Microsoft charged a German end-customer $100, for Microsoft Office, a profit of circa $95 (as the cost to Microsoft for copies of Microsoft Office is small) would be realised in Germany, and German tax would be payable on this profit. However, if Germany allows such an intangible asset, Microsoft can additionally charge Microsoft Germany $95 in IP royalty payments on each copy of Microsoft Office, reducing its German profits to zero. The $95 is paid to the entity in which the IP is legally housed. Microsoft would prefer to house this IP in a tax haven; however, higher-tax locations like Germany do not sign full tax treaties with tax havens, and would not accept the IP charged from a tax haven as deductible against German taxation. The Double Irish fixes this problem.WEB,weblink Profit Shifting and "Aggressive" Tax Planning by Multinational Firms, Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung, Centre for European Economic Research, (ZEW), Clemens Fuest, Christoph Spengel, Katharina Finke, Jost Heckemeyer, Hannah Nusser, 15 October 2013, 18 May 2018,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170811020522weblink">weblink 11 August 2017, live, WEB,weblink Intellectual Property Tax Planning in the light of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, University of Tilburg, June 2017, 18 May 2018,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20180519032352weblink">weblink 19 May 2018, live, The Double Irish enables the IP to be charged-out from Ireland, which has a large global network of full bilateral tax treaties.{{efn|name="treaty"|In September 2018, Ireland had a global network of 73 bilateral tax treaties, and a 74th with Ghana awaiting ratification.WEB,weblink Revenue: Double Taxation Treaties, Revenue Commissioners, 3 September 2018, 24 September 2018,weblink 23 September 2018, live, }} The Double Irish enables the hypothetical $95, which was sent from Germany to Ireland, to be sent on to a tax haven such as Bermuda without incurring any Irish taxation. The techniques of using IP to relocate profits from higher-tax locations to low-tax locations are called base erosion and profit shifting ("BEPS") tools. There are many types of BEPS tools (e.g. Debt–based BEPS tools); however, IP–based BEPS tool are the largest group.WEB,weblink 4, Intellectual Property Law Solutions to Tax Avoidance, UCLA Law Review, 2015, Intellectual property (IP) has become the leading tax avoidance vehicle, 23 September 2018,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150316232500weblink">weblink 16 March 2015, live, As with all Irish BEPS tools, the Irish subsidiary must conduct a "relevant trade" on the IP in Ireland.{{efn|name="employment"}} A "business plan" must be produced with Irish employment and salary levels that are acceptable to the Irish State during the period the BEPS tool is in operation.{{efn|name="tsg"}} Despite these requirements, the effective tax rate ("ETR") of the Double Irish is almost 0%, as the EU Commission discovered with Apple in 2016.Most major U.S. technology and life sciences multinationals have been identified as using the Double Irish. By 2010, US$95 billion of U.S. profits were shifted annually to Ireland,WEB,weblink Ireland: Where Profits Pile Up, Helping Multinationals Keep Taxes Low, Jesse Drucker, Bloomberg, 23 October 2013, 27 April 2018,weblink 16 May 2018, live, which increased to US$106 billion by 2015. As the BEPS tool with which U.S. multinationals built up untaxed offshore reserves of circa US$1 trillion from 2004 to 2017,{{efn|name="bush"|2004 was the date of the last Bush Administration tax amnesty, when pre–2004 offshore untaxed cash was repatriated at a special U.S. tax rate of 5%; in 2018, the TCJA repatriation tax rate was 15.5%.}}{{efn|name="bush2"|While various sources quote the amount of untaxed cash reserves as being closer to USD 2 trillion, a component of this figure represents cash flow that is awaiting reinvestment in the overseas markets, non-cash assets, and U.S. banking flows; the strong consensus is that the pure cash figure is at least over USD 1 trillion.WEB,weblink Making Sense of Profit Shifting: Edward Kleinbard, 15 March 2015, Tax Foundation, Eric Cederwall, We also know that the cash component of that is about $1 trillion. Therefore, we know from this that we're not talking simply about foreign investment in real foreign assets because somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 trillion is in cash and cash equivalents, 27 September 2018,weblink 4 December 2018, live, }}WEB,weblink The real story behind U.S. companies' offshore cash reserves, McKinsey & Company, David Cogman, Tim Koller, By our reckoning, the 500 largest U.S. nonfinancial companies have now accumulated around $1 trillion more than their businesses need. The majority of this is held offshore, in non-U.S. overseas subsidiaries, to avoid the incremental U.S. income taxes they would pay if they repatriated the money under current U.S. laws, June 2017, 24 March 2018,weblink 13 August 2018, live, NEWS,weblink U.S. corporate giants hoarding more than a trillion dollars, The Guardian, Jill Treanor, Earlier this year, anti-poverty charity Oxfam had estimated U.S. companies had $1.4tn in subsidiaries based offshore, while the $1.68tn that Moody's estimates is being stashed by U.S. companies is a sum equivalent to the size of the Canadian economy, 20 May 2016, 25 March 2018,weblink 25 March 2018, live, the Double Irish is the largest tax avoidance tool in history. In 2016, when the EU levied a €13 billion fine on Apple, the largest tax fine in history, it only covered the period 2004–14, during which Apple shielded €111 billion in profits from U.S (and Irish) tax.The earliest recorded versions of the Double Irish-type BEPS tools are by Apple in the late 1980s, and the EU discovered Irish Revenue tax rulings on the Double Irish for Apple in 1991. Irish state documents released to the Irish national archives in December 2018 showed that Fine Gael ministers in 1984 sought legal advice on how U.S. corporations could avoid taxes by operating from Ireland. The former Irish Taoiseach, John Bruton, wrote to the then Finance Minister Alan Dukes saying: "In order to retain the maximum tax advantage, US corporations will wish to locate FSCs in a country where they will have to pay little or no tax. Therefore unless FSCs are given favourable tax treatment in Ireland, they will not locate here."NEWS,weblink Fine Gael ministers discussed US corporations paying 'little or no tax' here in the 1980s, TheJournal.ie, Rónán Duffy, 29 December 2018, 30 December 2018,weblink 30 December 2018, live, Feargal O'Rourke, PwC tax partner in the IFSC (and son of Minister Mary O'Rourke, cousin of the 2008–2011 Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan Jnr) is regarded as its "grand architect".WEB,weblink Jesse Drucker, Man Making Ireland Tax Avoidance Hub Proves Local Hero, Bloomberg News, 28 October 2013, The grand architect of much of that success: Feargal O'Rourke, the scion of a political dynasty who heads the tax practice in PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Ireland, 24 March 2018,weblink 12 June 2018, live, NEWS,weblink Fiona Reddan, Scion of a prominent political dynasty who gave his vote to accountancy, The Irish Times, 8 May 2015, 24 March 2018,weblink 12 June 2018, live, NEWS,weblink Controversial tax strategies brainchild of O'Rourke's son, Irish Independent, Jesse Drucker, 3 November 2013, 25 March 2018,weblink 20 September 2018, live, WEB,weblink Feargal O'Rourke Turning Ireland Into 'A Global Tax-Avoidance Hub', Broadsheet Ireland, 29 October 2013, 24 March 2018,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20180429222310weblink">weblink 29 April 2018, live,

Basic structure (no Dutch sandwich)

File:Diagram of the Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich BEPS tool.png|frame|{{anchor|Chart 1}}Chart 1: Reproduction of the classic IMF diagram of the full "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich" BEPS tool:From the corporation:{{ordered list }}From the customer:{{ordered list |list-style-type=upper-alpha }}While there have been variations (e.g. Apple), the standard Double Irish arrangement, in simplified form, takes the following structure (note that the steps below initially exclude the Dutch sandwich component for simplicity, which is explained in the next section; Chart 1 includes the Dutch sandwich):{{efn|The most cited academic explanation of the Double Irish Dutch Sandwich, is Edward Kleinbard's 2011 Stateless Income, however it is not possible to reference a copy online.JOURNAL,weblink Stateless Income, Edward Kleinbard, 11, 9, 699–744, Florida Tax Review, 2011, Edward Kleinbard, }}WEB,weblink Figure 5.1 The Double Irish, Fiscal Monitor: Taxing Times, 47, International Monetary Fund, October 2013, 23 March 2018,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20180324101556weblink">weblink 24 March 2018, live, NEWS,weblink What is the Double Irish, Financial Times, 9 October 2014, Vanessa Houlder, 23 March 2018,weblink 24 March 2018, live, WEB,weblink Double Irish Tax Sandwich, Rose Law, Rodger Royse, 1 November 2013, 23 March 2018,weblink 24 March 2018, live, {{ordered list|type=lower-roman| A U.S. corporate (CORP, or X) develops new software in the U.S. costing $1 to build;| CORP sells it to its wholly owned Bermuda company (BER1, or H) for $1 (at cost, ideally);

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (United States)>GAAP), and books gain in Bermuda (tax free);| BER1 licenses it to its wholly owned Irish subsidiary (IRL1, or B) for $100;| IRL1 then sells it in Germany to a customer for $100;| IRL1 uses the $100 from Germany to pay the $100 royalty to BER1 (no profit in Ireland);| BER1 holds the $100 cash in perpetuity, thus avoiding U.S. 35% tax;| BER1 lends the $100 cash back to CORP (and other subsidiaries).}}This structure has a problem. The pre–TCJA U.S. tax code allows foreign income to be left in foreign subsidiaries (deferring U.S. taxes), but it will consider BER1 to be a controlled foreign corporation (or "CFC"), sheltering income from a related party transaction (i.e. IRL1). It will apply full U.S. taxes to BER1 at 35%.To get around this, the U.S. corporation needs to create a second Irish company (IRL2, or A), legally incorporated in Ireland (so under the U.S. tax code it is Irish), but which is "managed and controlled" from Bermuda (so under the Irish tax code it is from Bermuda). IRL2 will be placed between BER1 and IRL1 (i.e. owned by BER1, and owning IRL1). Up until the 2015 shut-down of the Double Irish, the Irish tax code was one of the few that allowed a company to be legally incorporated in its jurisdiction, but not be subject to its taxes (if managed and controlled elsewhere).The U.S. corporation will "check-the-box" for IRL1 as it is clearly a foreign subsidiary selling to non–U.S. locations. The U.S. tax code will rightly ignore IRL1 from U.S. tax calculations. However, because the U.S. tax code also views IRL2 as foreign (i.e. Irish), it also ignores the transactions between IRL1 and IRL2 (even though they are related parties). This is the essence of the Double Irish arrangement.Note that in some explanations and diagrams BER1 is omitted (the Bermuda black hole); however, it is rare for a U.S. corporation to "own" IRL2 directly. Elimination of Dutch sandwich (2010) The Irish tax code historically levied a 20% withholding tax on transfers from an Irish company like IRL1, to companies in tax havens like BER1.WEB,weblink Taxation Guide to Investing in Ireland, A&L Goodbody, June 2016, 23 March 2018,weblink 24 March 2018, live, However, if IRL1 sends the money to a new Dutch company DUT1 (or S), via another royalty payment scheme, no Irish withholding tax is payable as Ireland does not levy withholding tax on transfers within EU states. In addition, under the Dutch tax code DUT1 can send money to IRL2 (an Irish company that is legally incorporated in Ireland, and thus the US-tax code regards it as foreign, but is "managed and controlled" from, say, Bermuda and thus the Irish tax code also regards it as foreign) under another royalty scheme without incurring Dutch withholding tax, as the Dutch do not charge withholding tax on royalty payment schemes. This is called the dutch sandwich and DUT1 is described as the "dutch slice" (sitting between IRL1 and IRL2). Thus, with the addition of IRL2 and DUT1, we have the "Double Irish dutch sandwich" tax structure.In 2010, the Irish government, on lobbying from PwC Ireland's IFSC tax partner, Feargal O'Rourke, relaxed the rules for sending royalty payments to non–EU countries without incurring Irish withholding tax (thus ending the dutch sandwich), but they are subject to conditions that will not suit all Double Irish arrangements.WEB,weblink Treatment of Certain Patent Royalties Paid to Companies Resident Outside the State (e-brief 55/10), Irish Revenue, June 2010, 23 March 2018,weblink 24 March 2018, live, WEB,weblink Ireland Expands Withholding Tax Exemption On Royalties, Mason Hayes Curran Law Firm, August 2010, 27 April 2018,weblink 28 April 2018, live, WEB,weblink Withhold No More – Outbound Patent Royalties Can Be Paid Gross, Matheson (law firm), June 2011, 27 April 2018,weblink 28 April 2018, live, {{blockquote|O'Rourke set out to simplify those structures, eliminating the need for a Dutch intermediary. In October 2007, he met at Google's Dublin headquarters on Barrow Street with Tadhg O'Connell, the head of the Revenue division that audits tech companies. O'Connell is understood to have rejected O'Rourke's request that royalties like Google's should be able to flow directly to units in Bermuda and Cayman without being taxed.In 2008, O'Rourke's cousin Brian Lenihan became finance minister, setting much of the Revenue's policy. Two years later, after continued entreaties by O'Rourke, the Revenue's office announced that it would no longer impose withholding taxes on such transactions.|Jesse Drucker, Bloomberg, "Man Making Ireland Tax Avoidance Hub Proves Local Hero", 28 October 2013}} Controversial closure (2015) {{see also|Ireland as a tax haven#Political compromises}}The 2014–16 EU investigation into Apple in Ireland (see below), showed that the Double Irish existed as far back as 1991. Early U.S. academic research in 1994 into U.S. multinational use of tax havens identified profit shifting accounting techniques.WEB,weblink What Do We Know About Base Erosion and Profit Shifting? A Review of the Empirical Literature, University of Chicago, Dhammika Dharmapala, 2014, It focuses particularly on the dominant approach within the economics literature on income shifting, which dates back to Hines and Rice (1994) and which we refer to as the "Hines–Rice" approach., 1, 23 September 2018,weblink 20 July 2018, live, Dhammika Dharmapala, JOURNAL,weblink Fiscal Paradise: Foreign Tax Havens and American Business, James R. Hines Jr., Eric M. Rice, Together the seven tax havens with populations greater than one million (Hong Kong, Ireland, Liberia, Lebanon, Panama, Singapore, and Switzerland) account for 80 percent of total tax haven population and 89 percent of tax haven GDP, Quarterly Journal of Economics (Harvard/MIT), February 1994, 9, 1, 23 September 2018,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170825172644weblink">weblink 25 August 2017, dead, James R. Hines Jr, U.S. congressional investigations into the tax practices of U.S. multinationals were aware of such BEPS tools for many years.WEB,weblink International Taxation: Large U.S. Corporations and Federal Contractors with Subsidiaries in Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Privacy Jurisdictions, U.S. GAO, Table 1: Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Privacy Jurisdictions and the Sources of Those Jurisdictions, 12, 18 December 2008, 23 September 2018,weblink 20 August 2018, live, However, the U.S. did not try to force the closure of the Double Irish BEPS tool, instead it was the EU which forced Ireland to close the Double Irish to new schemes in October 2014.NEWS,weblink Brussels in crackdown on 'Double Irish' tax loophole, Financial Times, October 2014, Alex Barker, Vincent Boland, Vanessa Houlder, Brussels is challenging the 'Double Irish' tax avoidance measure prized by big U.S. tech and pharma groups, putting pressure on Dublin to close it down or face a full-blown investigation. .. The initial enquiries have signalled that Brussels wants Dublin to call time on the tax gambit, which has helped Ireland become a hub for American tech and pharma giants operating in Europe., 23 March 2018,weblink 22 July 2018, live, Nevertheless, existing users of the Double Irish BEPS tool (e.g. Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, amongst many others), were given five more years until January 2020, before the tool would be fully shut-down to all users.WEB,weblink Ireland's move to close the 'Double Irish' tax loophole unlikely to bother Apple, Google, The Guardian and University of Sydney, Anthony Ting, October 2014, 23 March 2018,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20180722114227weblink">weblink 22 July 2018, live, NEWS,weblink Two years after the 'double Irish' was shelved, Google used it to shift billions to Bermuda, 28 November 2018, TheJournal.ie, Two Years After the controversial 'double Irish' loophole was closed to new entrants, Google continued using the system to funnel billions in untaxed profits to Bermuda., 28 December 2018,weblink 3 May 2019, live, This approach by successive U.S. administrations is explained by an early insight that one of the most cited U.S. academic researchers into tax havens, and corporate taxation, James R. Hines Jr., had in 1994. Hines realised in 1994, that: "low foreign tax rates [from tax havens] ultimately enhance U.S. tax collections". Hines would revisit this concept several times,JOURNAL,weblink Treasure Islands, 103–125, James R. Hines Jr., Table 1: 52 Tax Havens, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 4, 24, 2010, James R. Hines Jr, as would others,JOURNAL, Using Financial Accounting Data to Examine the Effect of Foreign Operations Located in Tax Havens and Other Countries on U.S. Multinational Firms' Tax Rates, Scott Dyreng, Bradley P. Lindsey, 12 October 2009, Finally, we find that U.S. firms with operations in some tax haven countries have higher federal tax rates on foreign income than other firms. This result suggests that in some cases, tax haven operations may increase U.S. tax collections at the expense of foreign country tax collections., Journal of Accounting Research, 47, 5, 1283–1316, 10.1111/j.1475-679X.2009.00346.x, free, and it would guide U.S. policy in this area for decades, including introducing the "check-the-box"{{efn|name="check"|Before 1996, the United States, like other high-income countries, had anti-avoidance rules—known as "controlled foreign corporations" provisions—designed to immediately tax in the United States some foreign income (such as royalties and interest) conducive of profit shifting. In 1996, the IRS issued regulations that enabled U.S. multinationals to avoid some of these rules by electing to treat their foreign subsidiaries as if they were not corporations but disregarded entities for tax purposes. This move is called "checking the box" because that is all that needs to be done on IRS form 8832 to make it work and use Irish BEPS tools on non–U.S. revenues was a compromise to keep U.S. multinationals from leaving the U.S. (page 10.)}} rules in 1996, curtailing the 2000–10 OECD initiative on tax havens,WEB,weblink The OECD Initiative on Tax Havens, 11 March 2010, Congressional Research Service, James K. Jackson, 7, As a result of the Bush Administration's efforts, the OECD backed away from its efforts to target 'harmful tax practices' and shifted the scope of its efforts to improving exchanges of tax information between member countries., 23 September 2018,weblink 30 June 2013, live, and not signing the 2016 OECD anti-BEPS initiative.WEB,weblink Treasury Official Explains Why U.S. Didn't Sign OECD Super-Treaty, Bloomberg BNA, The U.S. didn't sign the groundbreaking tax treaty inked by 68 [later 70] countries in Paris June 7, [2017] because the U.S. tax treaty network has a low degree of exposure to base erosion and profit shifting issues", a U.S. Department of Treasury official said at a transfer pricing conference co-sponsored by Bloomberg BNA and Baker McKenzie in Washington, 8 June 2017, 23 September 2018,weblink 22 May 2018, dead, WEB,weblink International Tax Advisory: Impact of the Multilateral Instrument on U.S. Taxpayers: Why Didn't the United States Choose to Sign the MLI?, Alston & Bird, 14 July 2014, 23 September 2018,weblink 13 September 2018, live, {{blockquote|Lower foreign tax rates entail smaller credits for foreign taxes and greater ultimate U.S. tax collections (Hines and Rice, 1994). Dyreng and Lindsey (2009), offer evidence that U.S. firms with foreign affiliates in certain tax havens pay lower foreign taxes and higher U.S. taxes than do otherwise-similar large U.S. companies.|author=James R. Hines Jr. |source="Treasure Islands" p. 107 (2010)}}By September 2018, tax academics proved U.S. multinationals were the largest users of BEPS tools,NEWS,weblink Half of U.S. foreign profits booked in tax havens, especially Ireland: NBER paper, The Japan Times, 'Ireland solidifies its position as the #1 tax haven,' Zucman said on Twitter. 'U.S. firms book more profits in Ireland than in China, Japan, Germany, France & Mexico combined. Irish tax rate: 5.7%.', 10 September 2018, 26 September 2018,weblink 11 September 2018, live, and that Ireland was the largest global BEPS hub.NEWS,weblink Ireland is the world's biggest corporate 'tax haven', say academics, Study claims State shelters more multinational profits than the entire Caribbean, The Irish Times, 13 June 2018, 18 June 2018,weblink 24 August 2018, live, NEWS,weblink Zucman:Corporations Push Profits Into Corporate Tax Havens as Countries Struggle in Pursuit, Gabrial Zucman Study Says, Such profit shifting leads to a total annual revenue loss of $200 billion globally, The Wall Street Journal, 10 June 2018, 18 June 2018,weblink 4 April 2019, live, In December 2018, Seamus Coffey, the Chairman of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, told The Times in relation to the closure of the Double Irish that "A lot of emphasis has been put on residency rules and I think that emphasis has been misplaced and the changes didn't have that much [of an] effect".NEWS,weblink Double Irish move 'was not enough to tax close loophole', The Times, Paul O'Donoghue, 31 December 2018, 31 December 2018,weblink 31 December 2018, live, On 3 January 2019, The Guardian reported that Google avoided corporate taxes on US$23 billion of profits in 2017 by using the Double Irish with the Dutch sandwich extension.NEWS,weblink Google shifted $23bn to tax haven Bermuda in 2017, filing shows, The Guardian, 3 January 2019, 4 January 2019,weblink 4 January 2019, live, Apple's €13 billion EU fine (2016) (File:EU State Aid Case Ireland Apple.jpg|thumb|The EU Commission's diagram of Apple's "Double Irish" BEPS tool)File:Margrethe Vestager EU Commission Apple Ireland State Aid.jpg|thumb|Margrethe VestagerMargrethe VestagerBy 2017, Apple was Ireland's largest company, and post leprechaun economics, accounted for over one quarter of Irish GDP growth.WEB,weblink Quarter of Irish economic growth due to Apple's iPhone, says IMF, RTE News, 17 April 2018, 23 April 2018,weblink 18 April 2018, live, NEWS,weblink iPhone exports accounted for quarter of Irish economic growth in 2017 – IMF, The Irish Times, 17 April 2018, 23 April 2018,weblink 18 April 2018, live, Apple's use of the Double Irish BEPS tool to achieve tax rates