Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for coming before the committee. I will start by picking up on the point made by Senator Davitt on VRT, which was very well made. I have been a huge advocate for and have heaped praise on the Revenue Commissioners for its unbelievable ability to adapt to the crisis that we had and to create the structures required. We passed legislation and the Revenue Commissioners had to put the systems in place. There was a massive effort by Mr. Cody and all of his team. That said, VRT is a real issue. We are hearing time and again from individuals who see the goalposts moving all of the time. An individual contacted me recently whose business is dealing in secondhand cars. In correspondence he said that the VRT on all cars seemed to have been hiked up in the last week because it appeared the Revenue Commissioners had adjusted all vehicle prices. Two weeks prior to that, this individual agreed to purchase a car. According to the VRT calculator at that time, a sum of €3,400 was owing. However, when the sale went through, with a sale and a margin agreed, the VRT calculator said that €4,000 was owing. We can all see what is happening to the value of cars in the secondhand market. It is madness, with cars bought for €18,000 that are worth €26,000 two years later. We understand that but the businesses affected are not getting any communication from Revenue to tell them what is happening. Dealers have found that their profits were completely written out or they were selling cars at a loss to the business.

Another issue I want to raise relates to certificates of conformity. I give the example of a business which sold a number of secondhand cars in 2021. The cars were made in Britain and were, therefore, zero rated but one does not get a certificate of conformity for a secondhand car. A year later, Revenue contacted the business and said it wanted to check if the cars really should have been zero rated. The issue presented to me was that in other circumstances, when that business files paperwork, Revenue is able to tell it immediately that the car was produced in Turkey, for example, is not zero-rated and that 10% has to be applied. That is fine because then the business knows the rules. Certainty is what these businesses need. They know the rules and they know that they have to pay at 10% so they build that into the sale price. However, for Revenue to contact them a year later to tell them that a part of the car was not created in the UK, thus wiping out all of the profit, is a serious issue. I say that in the context of Revenue being able to move mountains in order to do what we have been able to do in the last couple of years. I am sure we can get the VRT stuff right too. I am fully aware of the volatility in the secondhand car market which is largely due to Brexit. Businesses are not worried about that. They just want certainty; they want to know what are the rules. If they purchase a car today and the VRT calculator tells them they owe €3,000, they do not want to be surprised when they file their return to discover that the VRT owing is €4,000 because that means a week's work is gone. No business can survive in that environment. I encourage Revenue to look into that. It is interesting that this has been raised today because it has been raised with me on more than one occasion.

Mr. Cody's opening statement began with e-gambling. I am not sure why that was the case; perhaps someone asked him to address that issue. A long-overdue gambling law will be enacted next year because the existing law dates back to 1931. We have gaming companies that are operating in this State and paying corporation tax to Revenue but they are operating without a licence. They are operating illegally. Mr. Cody mentioned the fact that Revenue works with the Department of Finance, An Garda Síochána and the Courts Service. When Revenue knows that there is a company filing corporation tax returns that does not have a licence to do what it is doing, does it just accept the money or does it do something about it? There are numerous companies out there that are involved in gaming which do not have licences. They do not have a licence because they cannot get a licence for the type of activity in which they are engaged. If they have a permit, they are breaching all of the conditions of that permit because the type of gaming activity in which they are involved is way beyond what is covered by a permit. I must declare here that I am a director of not-for-profit community music festival in Gweedore that raises money through a gaming permit and a gaming licence, which is why I am familiar with this issue.