Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

That is not what is going on in the property market. The funds directly own the property. It is not as if a fund owns the ice cream shop, the ice cream shop is taxed, the fund is then taxed and then the shareholders are taxed. That would be double taxation, but that is not what is happening. It is not as if the funds own property companies that are paying tax and we are saying that the property companies pay tax so we are not going to tax twice the funds that own the property companies. If that were the case, I would agree with the Minister of State, but that is not how this works. The property investment funds own the property. They get direct income. It is their business or trading income. What we are saying is that we are not going to tax their trading income, but we will tax their dividend payments. If we were to tax the trading income and tax the dividend payments, that is not double taxation. That is how every business works. However, here, we are saying that we are not going to tax the trading income. For some reason, in property we are not going to do that. It is unlike any other sector. We are no longer taxing their trading income, just their dividend payments.