So this tweet has a picture of a sign up in St Pancras station in England advertising what a great place Belgium is for companies from outside the EU that want to retain as much profit as possible away from European tax.

The quote I particularly love is the one where they say they are the worlds leading patent box – that’s basically the regime that we have that we get so much bad press for operating and here’s Belgium making huge shitposts about it to U.K. travellers.

I don’t think what we do to support non EU countries avoid EU tax is all rosy and fine but I do have to wonder why is it seemingly ok for Belgium and not for Ireland?

2 comments

  1. Pretty accurate picture there

    There is a reason specialists in legal and accounting make really good money in international taxation and it isn’t all due to avoiding it…half the battle seems to be figuring out what you owe, where and why given its constantly changing.

  2. The Netherlands have had two EU State Aid cases against them in the last 10 years (similar to the Apple case here), for both Starbucks and IKEA.

    But Ireland tends to be the target of any criticism when it comes to corporate tax

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