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

That is interesting. The amount of revenue that is coming in is even higher than expected. Given that €21 billion in corporate tax revenue is projected, I presume the Minister at least has a pre-tax gross trading profits estimate for 2021 and 2022. He must have if he can project the revenue amount. All the figures are not collated and there is a bit of a delay on that, which I understand, but he must have some projection for those figures. While he seems to be indicating the rate of growth may slow down a little, the figures suggest that pre-tax trading profits for 2021 and 2022 were a big jump from what we had in 2020, unless the effective rate has dramatically increased. That is the only other explanation for why so much extra revenue is coming in.

Workers get some tax breaks, which means their taxable income and gross income are slightly different. However, the extent of the deductions, allowances and reliefs from which the corporate sector seems to benefit is of an order way in excess of what an ordinary workers gets in tax breaks. The figures for 2020 are the latest figures available to me. They show there was €193 billion in pre-tax profits but the taxable income was only €110 billion. That points to a huge series of allowances and deductions before we get to the taxable income. One might imagine a situation where workers had seen an 158% increase in their wages since 2012. They would be flying it. However, they have not seen anything remotely like that.

There is an absolute profit bonanza happening. I always make these points because somebody has to remind people of them. This is going on more or less in the background. Every now and again we might hear that this or that company has made super-profits but the sheer scale of it dazzles me. It is extraordinary. There has been a 158% increase in profits between 2012 and 2020 and they almost certainly will go up further in 2021 and 2022. That must be compared with the situation of ordinary workers who, in the same period, might have seen their pre-tax incomes going up by a couple of percent a year, giving a total of perhaps 20%, if that. There is a big difference.

This issue needs to be examined and, when one does so, one comes to the inescapable conclusion that these staggeringly profitable companies should be paying a bigger contribution in tax to our society. We must remember that they, as much as all the rest of us, rely significantly for their ability to make those profits on the infrastructure for which ordinary workers pay with their taxes. This includes water infrastructure, roads, the benefit they get from our education system and all the other things that are paid for by us. Workers pay €30 billion in tax every year, whereas out of the profits of these companies, which are far more than what ordinary workers earn, there was a contribution of only €20 billion to tax. There is a fundamental injustice there and I make no apology for highlighting it and suggesting we do something about it.