Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that the Minister is reviewing a number of aspects of the inheritance tax regime because we have been through a very fraught and difficult number of years. The fact that the threshold for gifts from parents to children has reduced by almost 60% since 2009 is quite stark. We now have a toxic combination of that drastic cut in the threshold, the increase in the rate from as low as 20% to 33% and, now, rising property values. That has resulted in 34% more people having to pay inheritance tax over the past four years. The yield has increased dramatically from €186 million in 2010 to an estimated €400 million in 2015.

This is an issue as people like to leave an inheritance if they can for a family but neither families nor the people leaving an inheritance like the idea of paying a big chunk of that to the Minister. I am sure he accepts that. The thresholds must be addressed and I would like to see the indexation of the thresholds revisited, along with the interest rate - at almost 8% - which applies when somebody decides to pay the inheritance tax liability over a number of years.

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