Irish Q1 underlying tax take up 9% ahead of expected Trump hit

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland collected 9% more tax year-on-year in the first quarter excluding one-off proceeds from a ruling on Apple back taxes, growth that was once again propelled by booming corporate taxes, the finance ministry said on Thursday.

Ireland has collected record levels of tax in each of the last four years, mainly due to a surge in corporate tax mostly paid by a small number of foreign multinational companies that could be threatened by U.S President Donald Trump's policies.

Before Trump came to office Ireland's finance ministry had pencilled in another 3% rise in tax revenues for this year, excluding the 14 billion-euro back tax bill paid by Apple over the last few months.

Research co-authored by the finance ministry last week found that permanent U.S. tariffs would lower personal, indirect and corporation tax receipts, with company returns also facing an additional risk from planned U.S. corporate tax reforms.

While only about 15% of corporate tax is generally collected in the first quarter, March is the first month of the year when significant returns are made and 4.7% more corporate tax was taken in last month than the same period a year ago.

Corporate tax receipts were up 25% for the quarter as a whole with the larger first quarter returns for income tax and VAT up 3.6% and 6.8% respectively.

Ireland recorded an exchequer surplus of 0.9 billion euros in the first quarter, excluding the Apple funds and taking account of a lower than expected 8.8% in government spending.

The corporate tax haul has handed Ireland the healthiest public finances in Europe and the finance ministry forecast last October that it would deliver a budget surplus of 2.4% of modified gross national income this year.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)