Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There is a disjunction between the way Ms Donaghy's description and the Revenue document, to which I referred, which lists all these various reliefs, expenditures and credits. We all need to sing from the same hymn sheet. If different people are defining items in different ways, it is hard to get a grip on it. I should have said initially that I commend the witnesses on doing all this work. There is significant detail in the analysis they did of the reliefs. Revenue has to do considerable work to compile all this but the witnesses will appreciate it is difficult for us to make head or tail of it if there are different definitions.

Without asking the witnesses to make political judgments on these matters, would it be fair to say that it is open to political discussion as to whether some of these items should be classed as expenditures? For example, I presume a company can write off the cost of purchasing a large number of company cars for its employees but a PAYE worker cannot submit a claim for tax relief on the basis they have bought a car as a means by which to get to work. The owners of that business get a tax benefit that ordinary workers do not get and one could argue that the worker should get that tax relief. There is much to be debated. Is that not a fair comment?