Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 22 February 2018

Public Accounts Committee

Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed)

9:00 am

Dr. Brian Keegan:

It would have been a cashflow cost rather than an overall absolute cost. The value, in tax terms, is paid. In respect of the €1 million a company would have spent on acquiring the patent in the first place, that allowance remains until I have exhausted it but I cannot exhaust it by reference to 100% of my profits each year. I can only exhaust it by reference to 80% of my profits each year so what is happening is that the tax benefit of the company's investment in the patent is being deferred slightly rather than being extinguished completely. In so far as there is a cost, and I do not know what the cost would have been, it is a cost that is deferred rather than-----

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