Dublin retail technology firm Pointy is to be bought by Google. Neither company has disclosed the value of the deal, but sources confirmed the accuracy of a TechCrunch report that Google will pay around $160m. Set up six years ago, Pointy makes software that enables small bricks and mortars retailers to put their stock online, without the need for a full e-commerce system. In a blog post on Pointy's website, the company's founders Charles Bibby and Mark Cummins said the transaction is expected to close in the coming weeks. "Over the past several years we've developed a very close partnership with Google," they said. "It became clear that we shared the same vision of how technology can improve local retail businesses. So today is a natural next step in our journey," the blog said. "By joining forces, we will be able to help people discover local stores and products on a much larger scale. We think this is the right way to accomplish what we set out to do - to bring the world's retailers online and give them the tools they need to thrive," it added.

A typical small firm in Ireland pays less tax than its EU and US peers, according to a PwC-World Bank analysis. A detailed database provided by PwC shows that the hypothetical firm in question would pay Irish taxes equivalent to 26.2% of its pre-tax profits. Relocating that hypothetical firm to the US tax system would mean a 36.6% bite out of those pre-tax profits, and 38.9% on average across the 28-nation EU. The most taxed country by this metric is France, on 60.7%, composed chiefly of labour taxes. The model - designed by World Bank economists to produce the most consistent measure of indigenous firms' taxation experience - involves a profitable limited-liability company founded in January 2017 in the largest business city. It has 60 staff, including four managers. It records a 2017 loss but in 2018 - the year being measured - produces a 20% pre-tax profit and pays half of net profit to its owners. Based on this model, the EU member with the lowest business tax burden is Romania, which collects tax equivalent to 20% of that firm's pre-tax profit, followed by Luxembourg on 20.4%, Croatia on 20.5%, Cyprus on 22.4% and Denmark on 23.9%. Ireland's sixth-place position in the EU reflects an effective corporate tax rate of 12.4% - almost identical to the headline 12.5% rate - and labour taxes equivalent to 12.4% of pre-tax profit. The other 1.3% chiefly reflects city and vehicle-related taxes.

Headline grabbers Reddit and Lime announced plans to open offices in Dublin this year while several fin-tech firms landed here for their post-Brexit hedge. According to the American Chamber of Commerce, foreign direct investment had another strong year but looming shadows of Brexit and a possible global economic slowdown are causes for concern. Corporation tax remains a key reason for many of these location decisions but the organisation's president Mark Gantly said that Ireland has developed a strong track record over several decades. "There is a history of companies coming here to do manufacturing and 20 or 30 years later, they are a multi-business campus," Gantly, who is also senior R&D director at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, said. "It's unusual now to see an operation that's purely manufacturing. You tend to get a diverse campus with R&D, business services, sometimes you've got the IT function, treasury etc." Intel, one of the longstanding multinationals in Ireland, celebrated 30 years in the country in 2019 and secured planning permission for €3.6 billion expansion of its facility. As the curtain closes on 2019, foreign direct investment in Ireland remains in a reasonably strong shape but what will 2020 hold for the FDI landscape?