Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The question can be answered. If the Minister was willing to do this, we can get our heads together and look at how we can present the data in a way that does not reveal the personal taxation issues of any company.

Going back to my quote about statistics, one can dig deep into them. Recently The Irish Times carried a report which stated, in terms of the top 1,000 companies in the State that account for 50% of the corporation tax payable, the average effective tax rate was 15.5%. Obviously, there are reasons for that. There are two rates of tax. The Minister of State identified the 12.5% rate and then there is also the investment corporate tax which is the higher rate of 25%. Where is the rate for a company? Each individual company, as one went through it, had a different rate. Some paid no tax because they were carrying losses forward. Some paid a low rate of tax. Others have disputed those figures and torn them apart, and have gone into the details of individual companies. This is the problem with the debate.

I have my own views, and my party makes no bones about it. We want to ensure that we get the maximum effective tax rate possible from multinational companies but we have not said what that should be because we do not have a clue what it is at present. Earlier, we discussed income tax. While one cannot look at personal taxation and company taxation, in the past high earners were able to use all the different parts of the tax code to write down their tax liabilities and we brought in a minimum effective tax rate or a high-earner's restriction in the personal tax code. We do not have such a provision in taxation for companies. It is not as simple for companies. If one were not allowing companies to carry losses forward and if they had to pay a minimum effective tax rate, it could be most disadvantageous to a company. We need to look at it through careful lenses. However, we need the information to have that discussion.

There will be issues within the Finance Bill that will impact on this measure but, to tell the truth, I would not have got this through without the reference. A number of my amendments have been ruled out of order because they are declaratory.

One must tie an amendment in with the Finance Bill if tabling it. I will not labour this point because we have discussed it enough. When I was arguing about the section of the legislation that needed change, and which is changed as a result of this Bill, I argued with officials and the Minister that we needed to close down the loophole. Counter-arguments were made to the effect that we must all jump together and so on. What we do not want is a model company based on rates for a fictional ceramic company, as instanced, but the actual data for real companies. The Minister of State outlined the difficulty of having a model company. Deputy McGrath spoke to the Minister yesterday about the good analysis at the end of the budget book.