the "business plan" has never been disclosed, however, commentators imply the Irish wage-roll needs to be circa 2–3% of profits booked in Ireland: Apple employed 6,000 people in 2014, and at a €100,000 cost per employee gave a €600 million wage-roll on 2014 Irish profits of €25 billion (see table below), or 2.4% Google employed 2,763 people in 2014, and at a €100,000 cost per employee gave a €276 million wage roll on Google 2014 Irish profits of €12 billion, or 2.3% To the extent that the Irish jobs are performing real functions (i.e. the function is not replicated elsewhere in the Group), the cost is not an "employment tax", however, at worst case, the U.S. multinational should incur an aggregate effective Irish corporation tax of 2–6% (actual Irish BEPS tool tax of 0–2.5%, plus Irish employment costs of 2–3%). Therefore, as shown in , while Irish CT has consistently been between 10 and 15% of Total Irish Tax, the additional employment contribution made by U.S. multinationals in Ireland, has led to strong growth in overall Irish Total Taxes. Top 50 Irish corporations The top 50 Irish companies, ranked by 2017 Irish registered revenues, are as follows: From the above table: Multinational tax schemes Background The tax schemes used by U.S. multinationals in Ireland are called base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tools by tax academics. Whereas Ireland's headline corporation tax rate is 12.5%, Ireland's BEPS tools enable an effective tax rate of 0% to 2.5% to be achieved, depending on which BEPS tool is used. Ireland has been associated with U.S. multinational profit shifting to avoid taxes since the U.S. IRS produced a list on the 12 January 1981. In February 1994, the U.S. tax academic, James R. Hines Jr. identified Ireland as one of seven "major" tax havens for U.S. multinational profit shifting. During the 2014–2016 EU investigation into Apple's Irish BEPS tools, it was revealed that the Irish Revenue Commissioners had been issuing private rulings on Apple's Double Irish BEPS tools as far back as 1991; and that Apple, Ireland's largest company, had an ETR of less than 1%. In 2014, the EU Commission forced Ireland to close its Double Irish BEPS tool, however, Ireland had replacements in place: the Single Malt (2014), and the Capital Allowances for Intangible Assets (CAIA) (2009). When Apple closed its hybrid–Double Irish BEPS tool in Q1 2015 and restructured into the