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Ireland's finance minister has pledged to crackdown on "stateless" multinational companies who use addresses in the republic to avoid paying tax in their home countries.
The Irish government has come under repeated fire this year from tax campaigners to tie up loopholes that some claim have turned Ireland into a tax haven for transnational corporations such as Apple and Facebook.
Michael Noonan has promised a new finance bill that will include a measure to ensure that no Irish registered company can be stateless for tax purposes. "Let me be crystal clear. Ireland wants to be part of the solution to this global tax challenge, not part of the problem," Noonan said.
The US Congress sharply criticised Ireland earlier this year over low corporation tax and the fact that Apple paid less than 2% tax on the $100bn (£62.5bn) it made over four years. Irish registered companies were used to process most of the money, Congress complained.
The new rules to stop stateless companies will come into force from January 2015. They will be seen as a sop in particular to EU states such as Germany as Ireland seeks to defend its low corporation tax rate of 12.5%.
