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

I move amendment No. 20:

In page 59, between lines 36 and 37, to insert the following: "Reports

21.The Minister shall, within six months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on the revenue gained from increasing corporation tax to 25 per cent for corporations with over €800,000 in profits and in closing loopholes that exist that allow corporations to hugely reduce their rate of tax.".

I will make a short point because we covered much of this ground earlier. The most recent available figures for pre-tax trading profits are for 2020, and they were €193 billion. This is a remarkable 158% increase on 2012. Profits went up by 158% between 2012 and 2020. I am not sure where they are in 2022 but the Government is projecting €20 billion in corporate tax receipts. If one looks at the proportion of pre-tax profits in 2020 and the amount of tax paid, €193 billion in pre-tax profits brought in €11.8 billion in revenues in 2020. It would be fair to extrapolate that if the Government is projecting €20 billion in revenue in 2022, as the Government is, that would signify that the Government is projecting an even more dramatic increase in profits over 2021 and 2022.

I note that €11 billion tax paid on €193 billion in 2020 is neither, as the Government often suggests, 12.5% nor 11%, nor, as the Minister often suggests, 10.8% or 10.9%. It is 6.1%. People can do the mathematics. That is the actual effective rate that is applied on pre-tax profits.

It would suggest, if the Minister thinks €20 billion will be paid by the corporate sector at the end of this year, that we have seen a major jump in pre-tax profits for 2021 and 2022. I asked the Minister about this the other day. I do not know whether he has had a chance to look at the figures on how he is projecting that €20 billion but I presume it means he has some projection of what pre-tax trading profits are. I would be interested in the Minister giving us that figure, if he has it.