International Financial Services Center

The International Financial Services Centre (or IFSC) began in 1987 as a special economic zone on a derelict 11 hectare site near the centre of Dublin, with EU approval to apply a 10% corporate tax rate for designated financial services activities on the site. Before the expiry of this EU approval in 2005, the Irish Government legislated in 1998/99 to effectively "turn the entire country into an IFSC" by reducing the overall Irish corporate tax rate from 32% to 12.5% (full effect by 2003). The legal requirement for a specific IFSC geographic area was thus removed, and the term International Financial Services ("IFS") sector is now sometimes used.

The original 11 hectare IFSC site has gone through major expansions to become a 37.8 hectare site which is now a major European financial centre and situated within Dublin's central business district. It covers the office areas on the North Wall and East Wall (both north of the river Liffey), and the most recent Dublin City Council ("DCC") 2015 expansion includes the full North Lotts area (down to the Point Depot) and Grand Canal Basin (south of the Liffey) area which includes the Silicon Docks technology zone (home of Google and Facebook in Ireland). The IFSC is migrating into an "international services centre" (or "ISC"), then being purely "financial".

The transition from the IFSC to an "ISC" is logical. The IFSC law and accounting firms created the tax structures US technology firms are famous for using in Ireland (e.g. double Irish, single malt etc.). Some of these IFSC law firms also act as registered Irish offices for many types of US multinational tax structures. Also, IFSC law and accounting firms work closely together in creating artificial IP ideas, in offshore locations, that US multinationals of all types (not just financials), can then onshore in Ireland under the capital allowances for intangible assets scheme, and achieve Irish effective tax rates (ETRs) of 0-3%.

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