The Irish government decided last week to get rid of a tax loophole that has helped big multinational companies like Apple and Google avoid paying billions in taxes to any government at all. But hold the champagne: Ireland could well replace one problematic tax policy with another, leaving aggressive tax avoidance pretty much intact.

On Oct. 14, Ireland’s finance minister, Michael Noonan, said the country would get rid of the “double Irish” — a provision that allows companies doing business in the country to avoid taxes by making royalty payments to an affiliated firm that is registered in Ireland but has its tax home in another country, often a tax haven like Bermuda that has no corporate income taxes. The provision will disappear for new companies in January, but businesses already using it can continue to do so until 2020.

Still, Ireland, which for years used policies like the double Irish to attract multinational businesses, appears uninterested in true reform. It will create a new provision known as the Knowledge Development Box that will allow technology, pharmaceutical and other companies that make money from patented products and services to pay a discounted tax rate. Officials haven’t said much about what kinds of profits will qualify for the lower rate or what it will be. Experts expect it to be lower than the already low standard corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent.

Ireland is not alone in trying to lure tech companies with very low tax rates. Since last year, Britain has been phasing in what it calls the Patent Box. By 2017, the country will have just a 10 percent tax on profits from “patented inventions and certain other innovations.” That will be less than half its standard corporate tax rate of 22 percent.