Peter Reilly, Tax Policy Leader, PwC Ireland: Ireland’s ability to provide tax certainty and consistency to both domestic and multinational enterprises would be considerably enhanced by taking steps towards simplifying the tax code and decreasing the complexity of tax compliance. The administrative burden of compliance has increased significantly in the last decade. Change is needed to alleviate this burden and make it easier for companies to do business in Ireland.

The Commission on Taxation and Welfare has recommended that a review and consolidation of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 be carried out periodically. It is now 28 years since the last consolidation. The current legislation is unnecessarily lengthy, complex, with a patchwork of EU ATAD provisions now rendering their related Irish provisions superfluous to requirements. It is therefore a timely juncture for the simplification and modernisation of the tax code to pave the way for ease of doing business in Ireland in the future. The recent Department of Finance consultation on the tax treatment of interest is a welcome step in the right direction, however, it is imperative that this momentum continues, and the key concerns raised by stakeholders in the consultation are actioned expeditiously.

In addition, many of our key tax reliefs such as the R&D tax credit and the EIIS are too administratively burdensome to claim. Many small and micro businesses report that the complexity involved in availing of either tax relief represents a significant barrier to claiming them. These businesses are already grappling with the increasingly high cost of doing business and do not have the resources to navigate excessively complex administrative procedures necessary to invoke these important tax reliefs.

Simplification of the international tax system is also one of the pressing objectives of the OECD and the EU at the moment. Indeed, we saw a first move from the EU towards reducing this regulatory burden for businesses in February with the proposed Omnibus Simplification Package. It is important that Ireland remains at the vanguard of such reforms given the increasingly competitive battle to attract foreign direct investment.

This article appeared in the March 2025 edition of the Irish Tax Monitor.