Ms Josephine Feehily:

The SME sector is part of the project team. A Better Regulation group run by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and chaired, I believe, by the Minister of State, Deputy John Perry, includes representatives from business, including ISME, the Small Firms Association and IBEC. The Revenue Commissioners is also represented on the group, but I am not sure who else is involved. The group has not been able to tell us much more that we could do, although it has made one request to us. One of the issues that contributed most heavily to this process was the modernisation of relevant contracts tax, which removed 1 million pieces of paper from the system. The business representatives on the group are keen to see if we could use that model, which is a real time taxation model in which businesses can find out in real time how much to deduct from a contractor. This is because contractors are paid at one of three rates, depending on the risk involved. Business is very anxious to have us do more of this. That is the most recent conversation I have had with representatives of business. I have checked in with the group to see if there was any other work we should be doing and the answer I have tended to get is that they wish others would catch up with us.

There is another piece of work done by the World Bank every year. Since it started, Ireland has been shown to be the easiest country in Europe in which to pay business taxes. This year this is ranked as the sixth easiest country in the world in which to pay business taxes. There is, therefore, another validation, if one likes, in respect of this issue. The measure used in the World Bank's work is the length of time required to fill in forms. It does not focus on tax policy but the number of hours required to fill in forms and so on. There are, therefore, various pieces of work that support the view I have expressed. If there are specific transactions that we can make, I would be happy to hear what they are. We were discussing earlier that the VAT information exchange system, VIES, had moved from a quarterly to a monthly basis, which I know businesses do not like. If there are transactions which businesses consider unnecessary and could be eliminated by Revenue, I would be happy to hear about them. We will then examine them.