Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

At a level of principle there is merit in the Deputy's point. However, the primary purpose of the Revenue Commissioners is to collect tax. It is obviously very useful if they supply us with data so that when the Government makes decisions on the incidence of taxation it knows where to direct it. However, the Revenue has information on all principal tax reliefs and those for which it does not are minor in nature. I reiterate there are 33 remaining tax expenditures, or, as the Deputy terms them, tax reliefs, for which the costing data is not available. However, the bulk of these are small in nature and targeted at particular deserving sectors that continue to need support from the Exchequer. A number of tax expenditure measures support Irish sport, for example, and there are income tax exemptions and capital gains tax exemptions for sport bodies. Others support Irish charities, such as capital acquisition tax exemptions from gifts taken by charities, in addition to income tax exemptions. A significant number of the measures support the farming sector, for example, capital allowances on the purchase of milk quotas and capital gains tax relief for the disposal of a farm on retirement. Others include measures to support the unemployed, such as the income tax exemption for termination payments related to death or injury, and benefits in kind exemption for retaining a part of a redundancy package.

The information on big yield or big cost tax reliefs is available to me, as Minister for Finance. If I wish to change the reliefs in the budget I have that information. I am advised by Revenue that those reliefs for which it does not have information are small in nature and limited in cost or yield. The reason Revenue does not have such information is probably threefold. In the first place, Revenue does not wish to add additional bureaucracy to compliant taxpayers in order to gain a great deal of information that is of little value. More important, it must measure the cost of obtaining information and the manpower required to so do against the potential yield or cost to accrue from any such benefits.

I believe the situation is in order even though the Deputy has a case to criticise at a level of principle. I will make further inquiries.

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