{"id":467615,"date":"2026-05-26T10:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/467615\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T10:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:40:13","slug":"trumps-big-beautiful-bill-has-closed-gap-on-ireland-us-multinationals-tell-ibec-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/467615\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s \u2018big, beautiful Bill\u2019 has closed gap on Ireland, US multinationals tell Ibec \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> flagship tax legislation has made the United States \u201csignificantly more attractive\u201d for investment, US multinationals have told business lobby group Ibec, which has said the Republic must work \u201can awful lot harder\u201d to compete.<\/p>\n

Trump delivered what he called his \u201cbig, beautiful Bill\u201d last year, which extended vast tax reductions, paid for in part by steep cuts to healthcare and social welfare programmes.<\/p>\n

Projections <\/a>indicate the law could add up to $5 trillion to the US deficit over the next 10 years. But White House officials have contended the economic growth generated by tax cuts will offset the increased spending.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters as the business <\/a>group published its pre-budget submission to Minister for Finance Simon Harris on Monday, Ibec executive director of lobbying and influence Fergal O\u2019Brien said the new US laws have made it \u201csignificantly more attractive\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe US has really upped its game in terms of attracting new investment,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are regularly hearing from our members and others in the decision-making group of US multinationals that it is now quite attractive to make new investments in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland is going to have to work an awful lot harder if we want to win the next wave of investments. In terms of winning new capital investment and new greenfield projects, it\u2019s going to be much more difficult for Ireland and we do have to up our game there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ibec <\/a>chief economist and head of national policy Gerard Brady said the changes to the US tax code have been particularly generous on investment related to research and development (R&D), which is where the Republic has \u201cbeen winning, and winning well\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"Rents and evictions soar as house price inflation slows<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have heard that from lots of multinationals now,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re saying the Irish rate under the new global tax regime is 15 per cent headline and you can get a little bit less than that depending on the R&D tax credit.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in the US, for foreign-derived income where you\u2019re exporting or you\u2019re R&D intensive, under the [new tax code] you can get a headline rate of 14 per cent, and effective rates as low as 12 per cent, so really competitive with Ireland on tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe R&D tax credit in this context is going to be really, really important over the next number of years as a tool to keep Ireland competitive for those kind of investments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brady said Ibec is \u201cnot seeing much come through\u201d in terms of new capital expenditure here, with \u201cvery little\u201d in terms of new green field investment because the State is \u201cjust not as competitive\u201d against the US as it was, something he called \u201ca big trend over the past 18 months\u201d.<\/p>\n

Separately, O\u2019Brien said recent job cuts at Meta<\/a> could be attributed to a \u201creadjustment\u201d after a period of \u201coverhiring\u201d in and around the Covid pandemic, rather than a displacement caused by artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be lots of disruption [from AI] but there are going to be loads of opportunities as well,\u201d he said. \u201cBut right now, we don\u2019t have any large cohorts of members coming to us saying they are planning significant downsizing as a result of AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cHiring may be less ambitious than it has been over the past number of years, but that\u2019s no surprise. We\u2019ve just gone through a spectacular period. We\u2019ve grown jobs by 45 per cent over the past decade. That\u2019s not going to be repeated in the next decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien said there was \u201can incredible amount of frustration\u201d that the Government is \u201ccontinuing to sit on its hands\u201d in relation to a surplus in the National Training Fund, which was set up in 2000 to support those seeking training for employment and upskilling.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmployers <\/a>are putting 1 per cent of payroll into what should be a ring-fenced fund for labour market upskilling and reskilling,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat\u2019s happening is the surplus is continuing to grow. It is now north of \u20ac2 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo us, it is incomprehensible at a time when we are seeing so much disruption in the labour market. Ireland has moderate levels of lifelong learning, but we\u2019re a long way off the top of class.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump\u2019s flagship tax legislation has made the United States \u201csignificantly more attractive\u201d for investment, US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,969,4105,61,60],"class_list":["post-467615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-ibec","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}