Small countries with constrained economies long ago discovered interesting ways of making a living. There was, for instance, the issue of ever more attractive postage stamps, some issued in sufficiently small numbers as to make them highly collectable by philatelists around the world. Small nations have also set themselves up as registries for international shipping and more famously as offshore financial centers.

Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Andorra and San Marino are small European states that have also in various ways attracted the super-rich either to live, as in Monaco or to process their investments, as in Liechtenstein and Luxembourg. When the Eurobond market began in the 1970s, it was said that Belgian dentists used to drive regularly across the border to Luxembourg where their bonds were held, to pick up their quarterly coupon payments.

Leaving aside the postage-stamp earnings from countries no bigger than postage stamps themselves, the main attractions of these jurisdictions have been considerably lower tax rates and registration fees. Along with these has often been a relaxed attitude to the enforcement of international rules and regulations. Thus last week the Marshall Islands was protesting at the emissions from world shipping, even though, as the leading flag-of-convenience registry, it was always itself in a position to pressure ship owners to make their vessels more environmentally friendly.

For larger nations, there has long been a limited degree of competition to attract the registration of international corporations. Even within the United States, Delaware has established itself as the go-to corporate registration center, in part because it does not collect taxes on income earned from outside the state. Thus company finance officers have been able to keep longer control of their income and make arrangements to mitigate their tax bills elsewhere.

But Ireland is a medium-size country with a diverse economy and a strong international brand. It is for instance a major exporter of cattle, not least to the Middle East. In the 1980s it became a “tiger economy” in large part because of its benign tax regime for foreign companies. Like Iceland, which borrowed heavily abroad, in the end the Irish boom turned into near catastrophic bust as asset prices, including property, collapsed under mountains of debt.

But even in the worst of its recession, Ireland remained a major location for multinational corporations because of its extremely attractive corporate tax rates. The Eurocrats in Brussels became increasingly vexed at Ireland’s generosity, the more so because EU funds were needed to bail out the country’s banking system after it imploded. Now Ireland and the giant Apple Corporation - the world’s richest business - have lost a bitterly fought legal battle against a ruling from Brussels that the highly favorable Irish tax regime amounted to illegal state aid.

As a result, even though it and the Irish government are still seeking to appeal, Apple has begun to pay $13 billion of back taxes into an escrow account, pending final judgment. Other multinationals that have set up in Ireland are also likely to be obliged to pay many billions of tax which Brussels calculates they owe. In Dublin, politicians remain distraught that their country’s long-standing offshore business plan has been ruled illegal. But they cannot really be that upset. Considering the billions of dollars that are likely to be rolling into the Irish treasury, this was not too bad a battle to lose.