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

Like Deputy Ryan, this is an issue I pressed on Committee Stage. I welcome the Minister's amendment. I think it was patently unfair to change the goalposts for those for whom a car had been provided by their company over the course of 2018 up to budget day. That was certainly unfair. I think the Minister has recognised that because various promotional material was produced following the budget last year which made it clear that the benefit-in-kind at 0% would last for at least three years and there was no reference to a cap. I acknowledge the number of people affected is quite modest. The signal it sends is important. If we change the goalposts for incentives that we are introducing to encourage people to move away from fossil fuels, fossil fuel investments, vehicles and so on and then do not see it through, there is an issue of trust that could potentially damage our tax system and the support for people to buy into the changes that we all need to move towards.

I want to raise two issues. This may be the only case in the country but a scenario has been brought to my attention where a company entered into a binding legal contract to purchase a vehicle for an employee in September but the vehicle cannot be provided until January. In the wording of the Minister's amendment, he removes the €50,000 cap where the car was first made available to the employee up to 9 October 2018. That does not deal with the scenario here which may well be the only one or there are very few in the country where a contractual commitment was entered into. I see the Minister of State, Deputy D'Arcy, shaking his head. When other changes have been made to taxation systems, such as stamp duty, the cut-off point has been determined by the entering into of a contractual commitment. That defined the cut-off point, but what the Minister has defined as the cut-off point is the making available of the car to the employee. That is different and I want to raise that issue with the Minister to see if there is any flexibility that might address the situation.

The second point, which is the same as Deputy Ryan's, relates to the timeframe. I assume the Minister's logic is that year one of the three years for people who will not now be subject to the €50,000 cap is 2018, with year two being 2019 and year three being 2020, whereas the benefit-in-kind exemption applies, subject to the cap, for everybody else up to the end of 2021. There is a difference of a year which I assume is because the Minister gave a three-year commitment and is taking 2018 to be year one, which is a case he can argue. The issue of where a contractual commitment was entered into is one I ask him to look at in the interests of fairness. In the case I am aware of, the commitment was made and a legally enforceable contract entered into on the basis of what was pledged and enacted in law last year.

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