Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 22 January 2019

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion

Dr. Keith Walsh:

No, 2016 is the most recent year for which we have the data. It might be useful to explain the timing and why we do not have, say, data for 2017 at present because it does affect a number of other tax expenditures on which we would ideally like to be able to report. Essentially, this comes back to the timing of tax returns and tax payments. Again taking 2017 as an example, businesses registered for income tax would usually pay their tax during 2017 on a preliminary basis for that year but they do not actually file their returns for 2017 until nine or ten months after the year ends. Therefore, the income tax returns for 2017 were being filed in the final quarter of 2018 of last year. We then have to process those data. There can be late returns, people who do not file on time for various reasons and paper filers still, so we must go through quite a process to get those data together. It will therefore probably be the second quarter of this year when we have the data ready and can do the analysis for 2017. Ultimately, however, it comes back to when the tax returns are filed. It is the tax returns that have all the detailed information. Sometimes we will get payments in on a real-time basis during the year but it is only when we get the tax returns in that we are given the details of the incomes, the profits of the business or the individuals and the various reliefs and exemptions they have used and we understand their full positions. That is why we need the full tax return.