Many times Ireland’s corporate tax rate of 12.5% has come under fire from Europe and the US as the Googles and Facebooks of the world have moved their European operations to avail of our favourable rates.

Yet one of Ireland’s largest private companies has been doing the opposite. New information on Larry Goodman’s business empire shows a number of companies connected to Ireland’s most secretive beef baron have relocated to Luxembourg.

These companies set aside less than €300,000 for taxes on profits last year, which meant they paid a corporate tax rate of just 0.3%. At the same time, two farms in Co Louth connected to Goodman (Braganstown Farms and Glydee Farms) received more than €413,000 from the EU in the form of the basic payment.

Just like Google and Facebook, the Goodman group must keep the big tax advisory firms working hard to find creative solutions.

Profits

With beef prices on the floor, it will be hard for farmers to stomach seeing Goodman’s €4bn empire make a profit €182m last year. After all, the average income on suckler farms for 2018 was just €8,320 each.

Farmers can only dream of what this money could buy them. If Goodman sold his entire business empire in the morning, his €4bn could buy him more than 430,000 acres of land – an area roughly the size of Co Kildare.

Seeing as he’s invested in healthcare, Goodman could build the Children’s Hospital in Dublin and have change left over. He could even approach Glanbia about a possible takeover if he felt like getting into dairy.

Regardless of where Goodman chooses to base his companies, there’s clearly money somewhere in beef.