Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 29 November 2017
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Paradise Papers: Chairman, Office of the Revenue Commissioners
6:15 pm
Mr. Niall Cody:
I do not know which member to answer.
The RCT is effectively a withholding tax. The money offset is the money that is paid. We get the principal contractor to stop RCT at the rate of 20% or 35%. That money is available to be offset. The offset is against the subcontractors' income tax liability. The net amount repaid is actually money that is available from the money that was stopped after they had filed their income tax return and paid. The offset is in settlement of the subcontractor's tax liability for the year. RCT works in a way that, if a subcontractor is up-to-date with their returns, there is a zero amount stopped because they have filed their income tax return and paid their tax under the normal system. RCT is a measure that ensures we impose a 35% rate on a non-compliant subcontractor to make them compliant. Some subcontractors like to have the figure of 20% stopped because it means that they will not end up with a big liability at the end of the year. Someday we will engage in a more in-depth discussion about this system.
No comments