Foreign Multinationals Dominate Ireland’s R&D Tax Credit Payouts

Ireland’s tax credits for research and development are largely paid out to a “relatively small number of large foreign-owned companies,” according to the country’s finance ministry.

Some 225 large companies received €1.1 billion ($1.3 billion) worth of R&D tax credits in 2023, according to a review by the Irish government published Thursday, a sizable share of the €1.4 billion total cost to the Irish exchequer that year.

The R&D tax credit, which sees the Irish government refund a proportion of a business’s eligible R&D spending, was up marginally from the €1.2 billion cost ...