to support its IP–based BEPS tools. Yearly returns (2001–2017) The trends in Irish corporation tax ("CT") receipts to the Irish Exchequer were: Foreign firms pay 80% of Irish CT Revenue (notwithstanding that large U.S.–controlled tax inversions to Ireland, are classed as Irish firms). Irish CT Revenues jump in 2015, the year of Apple's re-structure of its BEPS tools. Since Apple's 2015 re-structure, Irish CT Revenue as a % of Total Irish Exchequer Tax Revenue is at its pre-crisis peak of over 16% (OECD average is 7.5%); Irish CT Revenue has been 10 to 16% of Total Irish Exchequer Tax Revenue (see graphic). The concentration of the Top 10 Irish CT Payers has risen post the crisis, despite the fact that Irish banks stopped paying Irish CT due to accumulated losses. Structure of Irish taxation Each year, the Department of Finance is required to produce a report on Estimates for Receipts and Expenditure for the coming year. The table below, is extracted from the "Tax Revenues" section of the report for the prior-year (e.g. the 2017 column is from the 2018 report), by which time the "Tax Revenues" for that year are largely known (although still subject to further revision in later years). The "Tax Revenues" quoted are Exchequer Tax Revenues, and do not include Appropriations-in-Aid ("A–in–A") items, the largest being Social Security (or PRSI) which for 2015 was €10.2 billion, and other smaller items. Irish Personal Income tax, and the two main Irish consumption taxes of VAT and Excise, have consistently been circa 80% of the total Irish Exchequer Tax Revenue, with the balance being Corporate tax. Low tax economy Transition in 1987 Ireland's economic model was transformed from a predominantly agricultural-based economy to a knowledge-based economy, when the EU agreed to waive EU State-aid rules to allow Ireland's 'special rate' of 10% for manufacturing (created in 1980–81 with the EU's agreement), to be extended to the special economic zone called the International Financial Services Centre ("IFSC") in Dublin city centre in 1987. The transformation was accelerated when Ireland's standard corporate tax rate was reduced from 40% to 12.5% (phased in from 1996 to 2003), in response to the EU's 1996–1998 decision to withdraw the State-aid waiver. The passing of the 1997 Taxes and Consolidated Acts laid the legal foundations for the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tools used by U.S. multinationals in Ireland (e.g. the Double Irish, the