The U2 frontman, currently in a business partnership with technology giants Apple, praised Ireland's 'business friendly' tax avoidance policy
“We are a tiny little country, we don’t have scale, and our version of scale is to be innovative and to be clever, and tax competitiveness has brought our country the only prosperity we’ve known,” he told the Observer.
“We don’t have natural resources, we have to be able to attract people.”
Because of its generous tax allowances, he added, Ireland has reaped the benefits of “more hospitals and firemen and teachers because of [the tax] policies”.
True to the musician's word, Apple does employ 4,000 people in its manufacturing plant in Cork – its largest and only factory of scale outside of the United States.
However, fans of the singer may be surprised by his seeming change of tact on the issue of corporate tax avoidance – Bonowas nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for his campaign to alleviate world debt.
Apple has paid an average tax rate of 2.5 per cent over the past five years, despite turning over a profit of around $109billion.
This is a fraction of Ireland’s standard tax rate of 12.5 per cent.
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