The Department of Enterprise said there was an even stronger case to keep a special tax relief scheme for highly-paid multinational executives because of the international crackdown on tax avoidance.
In a pre-budget submission, the department said global reform of how corporation tax was levied made the case for the controversial Special Assignee Relief Programme (SARP) even more compelling.
It said there was a clear relationship between the location of key senior staff and corporation tax, which had been made “increasingly relevant” by international tax developments.
The submission said: “For intangible assets, the contractual right to an asset is no longer sufficient to establish the location of the asset for tax purposes.
“The decision makers, the people who control the risks relating to those assets in an operational and functional sense, must be located in the jurisdiction.”
It said Ireland needed to ensure its personal tax rates did not act as a deterrent to “key management staff … locating [here]”.