Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

If I understand the Minister correctly, what he says is a technical amendment is actually an amendment of very serious substance because we want retrospection. The Minister does not. We know that but when it comes to the section 110 tax break we absolutely want retrospection, as much of it as we can get because the section 110 tax break has been ruthlessly exploited by vulture funds to be, as the Minister describes it, "tax neutral". I love these euphemisms. "Tax neutral" means, for the ordinary member of the public, these financial vultures which have swept in and made an absolute fortune at our expense pay no tax on their enormous profits. The Minister established structures that would allow them do so.

For the layman who does not understand the technicalities of this, let us keep it really simple. No worker in this country gets tax neutral status, a special dispensation not to pay any tax. There are measures in our tax code that were designed to ensure these enormously profitable, speculative, vulture-type entities, would be "tax neutral", and would pay no tax on their income or their capital gains.

Where the Government had made some efforts to close that loophole for the future, although not completely, the Minister says he is determined that it not be retrospective. Most people would say that we should claw back as much as we possibly can from these vulture entities that have been let away with murder under section 110 tax breaks.

Will the Minister clarify that I have understood him correctly and that his fear is that unless we make this amendment, some of these section 110 companies could have a bigger tax liability, that is, the Exchequer could receive more tax revenue from these section 110 entities? If that is what he is saying, then I will certainly vote against the Government's amendment.

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