Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 1 June 2017
Public Accounts Committee
2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account
Chapter 13 - Revenue's Review of Medical Consultants' Tax Affairs
Chapter 14 - Research and Development Tax Credit
Chapter 16 - Deferral of Tobacco Stamp Liability
9:00 am
Mr. Niall Cody:
The bulk of the money goes to the bigger companies because the research and development credit is based on expenditure. As I told Deputy Cassells, we are working on guidelines, having issued some already in terms of Enterprise Ireland-supported companies where expenditure was up to €50,000.
The issue is that it has to qualify as research and development. When a small company spends money to find out how to do what a big company does, it does not mean that it qualifies as research and development. It has to be new learning and research.