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

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am moving on to page 23, the issue of companies paying dividends. I thank Dr. Keegan for his briefing note. That is a matter we will raise in more detail with Revenue in the afternoon. The briefing note was helpful for that.

I am moving on to page 26 of the briefing document and the capital allowance relating to intellectual property. We are talking about research and development. I refer to the final paragraph on page 26, which states:

Tax relief takes the form of a tax credit which reduces the company’s tax liability. This can arise based on either revenue expenditure or capital investment.

A company has to have clear procedures for accounting separately and I would imagine that to claim a big tax credit, it would maybe have to have an independent audit from a scientific point of view and a financial point of view which, by way of comparison, the public sector does not seem to be able to do when it comes to investment in spin-out companies identifying how much was spent.

That is not Dr. Keegan's topic. We will come back to it.

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