Clarke disappointed by NI corporation tax meeting | Latest Newry News, Newry Sport and Newry Business for Newry City

Clarke disappointed by NI corporation tax meeting

Alliance Newcastle Councillor Patrick Clarke has expressed his disappointment that talks about the devolution of corporation tax varying powers to Northern Ireland between the Executive, the Northern Ireland Office and the Treasury have broken up without agreement.

Speaking to Newry Times, Clarke stated, “I had anticipated albeit without surprise that this matter would have been progressed before the summer but failure to find common ground around the associated costs means that there is little prospect of devolution anytime soon. Our economy in the North has become stagnant with our reliance on our public sector. Whilst everyone accepts that this is not a silver bullet to resolve all of the challenges facing the Northern Ireland economy, it is clear that it represents the kind of significant change which could transform our economic competitiveness.”

“The North is the only part of the UK with a land border with another country that has a very low corporation tax rate and there is evidence from an Oxford Economics report that around 57,000 jobs could be created here in the North if we were to lower our corporation tax rate.”

He added, “Business leaders have been calling for the powers to be devolved to Northern Ireland as they can clearly see the advantage that a lower rate would provide. Our private sector deserves better to support them by progressing this very important issue regarding corporation tax for the North of Ireland.”

Short URL: https://newrytimes.com/?p=17918

Posted by on Jun 27 2012. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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