Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It is worrying to hear that the Government does not believe that it will be able to provide an informed view within 18 months. Large amounts of tax are at stake and there is an agreed policy position across the House that this needs to be shut down and these companies need to pay their taxes. They can pay their taxes as 25% section 110 tax, as 12.5% corporation tax plus 33% capital gains tax plus 20% withholding tax or whatever, but they must pay their legitimate taxes.

In fairness to the amendment, 18 months is a long time. We were able to raise this matter approximately six months ago based on filed 2014 accounts because they were publicly available. The State, including Revenue, will have that information much sooner. I would be concerned with a position taken by the State that it would not report on this matter until it had all of the information. We do not need all of the information. From a small number of filed accounts by the vulture funds, we were able to identify that there was something odd happening in terms of large-scale tax avoidance in a way that was never intended.

It worries me to hear the State say that, while it must keep an eye on this matter, it could not revert to the Dáil within 18 months because it does not believe that it will have the information. I am less generous than Deputy Pearse Doherty on his own amendment, but a response that claims that the State could not possibly have an informed position within 18 months is ridiculous. The Minister and the Minister of State should push back on it. If it takes more than 18 months for the State to get an informed opinion on massive tax avoidance that was never intended and in respect of which there is an agreed cross-party policy decision that it needs to be shut down, it worries me.

Will the Minister of State consult the Minister? To reiterate Deputy Pearse Doherty's comments, the analysis has to be shared. The Minister of State might confirm to the House that it will be. It has to be external. It is reasonable to expect something within 18 months. This is particularly so because the only reason that the vulture fund issue came to light was that section 110 companies had to file publicly accessible accounts with the Companies Registration Office, CRO.

It is possible that we are going to see some behavioural changes. I will be surprised if companies stay as section 110s and start paying 25% tax. I imagine that we will see transfers of assets to other fund types, but the problem with that is that most of those fund types do not file publicly accessible accounts. Whatever parliamentary, media and public oversight of section 110s has been possible, if they move their assets into qualified investment funds, Irish collective asset management vehicles or a range of special purpose vehicles, they will become invisible and we will be completely reliant on Revenue telling us what is happening.

The Minister of State's response suggested that a report would be difficult to arrange because we would see behavioural change. Of course it is not just a case of examining the same section 110s to determine whether they start paying their taxes. There is no doubt but that assets will be transferred, sold and restructured. Section 110s might try to securitise their assets. All sorts of things will happen, but the State must be capable of tracking the situation. Will the Minister of State represent back to whoever will be conducting the analysis, be it Revenue, the Department of Finance or external experts, that it must be within the competence of the State to have an informed approximation of the yield on these assets? We know what the assets are. We sold them to the companies. We owned them. Let us not fall into the trap of saying that, because the assets have moved or been securitised or restructured, it is no longer possible to estimate what level of tax yield we are getting from it. We need to know that the €40 billion or so asset base that was sold by NAMA, IBRC, HBOS, Deutsche Bank and so on and is yielding approximately €3.5 billion in profits per year is being properly and fully taxed in this country.

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