Ireland votes in a general election on Friday, with parties dangling promises of lavish spending and tax cuts funded by the country’s big budget surpluses. But Donald Trump risks turning off those gushing fiscal taps.
The US president-elect’s sweetener of a six percentage-point cut in corporation tax for companies making products in America, matching Ireland’s 15 per cent, is a danger for a country that has grown rich from American giants with European headquarters or big plants here.
“There’s [a] very, very good reason to be worried about corporation tax receipts stalling or reversing,” said Barra Roantree, assistant professor in economics at Trinity College Dublin.