FOR the last number of weeks, lobbyists from the major employer groups, unions, industry bodies, accounting and taxation institutes have made representations to the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan.

Of all the lobby groups, the one that hopefully the new Minister is listening most carefully to is that of the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland (Amcham).

The contribution by Amcham members are staggering to the Irish economy.

In 2007 US companies paid €2.5bn of corporation taxation and directly employed in excess of 100,000 employees adding billions more to the exchequer in indirect taxes.

We should not lose sight of the fact that bad as the exchequer returns are now, they can deteriorate significantly further if Ireland were to lose American multinational competitors.

A common sense proposal made in relation to im­proving our competitiveness is to give flexibility to companies to utilise the R&D tax credit not solely against corporation tax, but also against above the line costs such as employer PRSI.

Both the Irish Taxation Institute (ITI) and the main Accountancy Bodies (CCAB) have submitted proposals that support foreign direct investment.

Along with the R&D credit flexibility, they suggest making improvements to our withholding tax regime, an exemption for foreign dividends and the development of our international tax tr network. Simplification and advancement in these areas would be very welcome.

In an interesting proposal, the ITI has also called for tax measures to be introduced to attract "world class personnel" to Ireland. Since the removal of the remittance based system a number of years ago, we have lost ground in this area.

The thrust of the proposal is that tax reliefs for such personnel will more than pay for themselves via a fostering of innovation and development in Ireland.

Similar measures already exist in many EU states, with the objective being to attract and retain highly skilled workers, which marries well with becoming a high value add
economy.

Finally, it would be wrong to think that pre budget submissions are no more than an advertising opportunity for different groups; they form an important part of the democratic process.