DUBLIN – Ireland is set to deliver a budget surplus of 8% of modified gross national income (GNI) in 2024, far higher than an earlier forecast of 2.8%, due to a 14 billion-euro back tax bill to be paid by Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), the finance minister said on Friday.
The general government surplus is expected to be in the region of 25 billion euros in 2024, up from an April forecast of 8.6 billion largely due to the Apple tax funds, Finance Minister Jack Chambers told a news conference.
The funds will not impact next week’s national budget, he added, although the government will outline in broad terms its plans for spending the 14 billion-euro windfall.
The government has said it plans to increase public expenditure by 6.9% in the budget, exceeding for the third successive year its own budget rule that caps spending growth at 5%.
Irish corporate tax receipts, swelled by a cluster of tech and pharmaceutical multinationals, are likely to total around 30 billion euros this year, not including the Apple funds, Chambers forecast.
Ireland will likely post a surplus of 3.75% of modified GNI in 2025 he added, a figure that does not include measures to be announced in next week’s budget.
Chambers said the government expects to take receipt of around 8 billion euros from Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) this year and 6.1 billion euros next year. However, the full 14.1 billion euros will be booked on the national accounts this year.
(Source: Reuters)
Mary Lee is a freelance writer and journalist based in Toronto, Canada. She holds an M.S. degree in business and economic journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York and a certificate in digital marketing from the University of Toronto.
