{"id":3196,"date":"2009-02-24T15:58:37","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T13:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2009\/02\/24\/no-wonder-irelands-a-mess\/"},"modified":"2009-02-24T15:58:37","modified_gmt":"2009-02-24T13:58:37","slug":"no-wonder-irelands-a-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2009\/02\/24\/no-wonder-irelands-a-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"No wonder Ireland&#8217;s a mess"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/newspaper\/opinion\/2009\/0224\/1224241709273.html\" target=\"_blank\">Irish Times<\/a> has a feature today in which it is said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>In some cultures failing to pay one's taxes is regarded as a disgrace, but not so in ours, where 'tax fugitives' are feted as heroes<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a feature of the moral decline in Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>It's become endemic. Bono typifies it. As I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2008\/06\/12\/bono-helping-make-poverty-reality\/\" target=\"_blank\">have already noted<\/a> he has said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Ireland's prosperity had been achieved through tax innovation and it would be churlish to criticise U2 for being innovative in relation to their tax affairs when that's what people were encouraged to do and that's what made the country prosperous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It's curious too that the Irish Times article was in the context of philanthropy. I note J P McManus was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foundation.ie\/news\/mediacentre.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Philanthropist of the Year<\/a> in Ireland in 2007. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/news\/world\/ireland\/article5212827.ece\" target=\"_blank\">He is an<\/a> Irish tax exile.<\/p>\n<p>No wonder Ireland is a mess.<\/p>\n<p>In the context of which - anyone who is watching Irish television tonight might like to note I'll be on Primetime at 9.35pm<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Irish Times has a feature today in which it is said: In some cultures failing to pay one&#8217;s taxes is regarded as a disgrace,<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2009\/02\/24\/no-wonder-irelands-a-mess\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}