Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To start with, there were many comments at the start suggesting that the CRSS was a grant scheme. Can the Minister clarify that it is not a grant, and that it is instead a claim that could be made in future, but which is being allowed to be made now as an advanced claim? I thank his officials for providing backup notes to some of the more complex parts of the Bill and for the briefing they provided to us. A point was made regarding when a business makes its annual return to the Revenue for the chargeable period in which the support is received, that the normal tax reductions for lowest fixed costs will be reduced by the State's contribution provided through tax.

This scheme is basically, therefore, an advanced tax credit, but it will not be possible to claim it twice. When there is a taxable income, then, because this support was received during this period - and it is important that businesses get this support and now is the time they need it as opposed to reducing their tax liability in the future - does that mean there is a potentially increased tax liability in the future? I refer to not having this credit to offset it. Throughout the whole year, though, it all kind of balances itself out and, therefore, the CRSS is neither a grant nor an additional tax burden on the company. That is what I understand the support to be. In that regard, the key question concerns the briefing note stating that at a later point when the business makes its annual return to Revenue for the chargeable period in which the support is received. If there is not a chargeable income during that period, could this have been carried forward? The issue is whether these credits could have been carried forward.

If these credits are not used up under the CRSS, can they be carried forward? I presume they can be used against costs associated with rent, utilities, insurance and so on. Those are my questions on that aspect.

My other question relates to amendment No. 26, which has regard to qualifying business activity. The amendment defines the Covid restrictions period as a period when businesses must restrict "members of the public from having access to the business premises". This comes to the core of the matter. We will consider businesses that provide services to industries which are restricted under levels 3, 4 and 5 when discussing one of my later amendments. Such businesses may have lost more than 75% of their normal turnover, or perhaps even more, but are unable to avail of this scheme. Companies that do not have fixed premises are also ineligible.

It is not that one approach is better than the other but, if we look across the Border, we see a scheme similar to the CRSS with the difference that it is actually a grant and puts cash in businesses' pockets rather than an advance tax credit. The key point is that the scheme is available to a number of categories of business, including those with fixed premises but also those that do not have rateable premises. As we will come to later, it also applies to businesses in the service industry which service companies that are under restrictions.