Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a really important debate. There is an entire sub-committee of the joint committee dealing with this matter but unfortunately we have not made as much progress as we would like to have made because of disagreements. We are failing to agree on some very basic issues, but the April 2014 paper is really helpful. The reconciliation between gross income and taxable income is in black and white. The principal deductions involve capital allowances, trade charges and losses forward, all of which are well established principles of our corporation tax system and indeed many other corporation tax systems. They are applied consistently.

I support a knowledge development box but I do not see it happening anytime soon. It is a very controversial area as it is different from the patent box in the UK. It is controversial and runs against the overall trend in the OECD, and the various international initiatives. Let us be honest - it is two years since we sent a living cities initiative proposal to the European Commission and it still has not come back. We have not had sanction for it yet. The notion that we would have approval from Europe to introduce a knowledge development box anytime soon is fanciful in my opinion.