Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the second-last paragraph of the Minister of State's reply, which states that the Minister intends to bring forward an amendment on Report Stage of the Finance (No. 2) Bill 2023. The problem is that all the GPs who signed the contract understood that when they got income under the GMS scheme, it could go into the partnership account. The practitioners are not looking for such income, once it goes into a partnership account, to be treated as company income because of the far lower rate of tax on company income. That is not what is suggested. What they are looking for is that the system that was in place for many years continues. If the legislation needs amending, that would be welcome. GPs want to be entitled to lodge the income they get under the GMS scheme into partnership accounts in order that genuine expenses they incur in running their practices can be paid for out of those accounts.

In fairness to GPs, there is full accountability on the part of all of them as regards compliance with income tax and all the other regulations, whether PRSI, PAYE or whatever else. The important thing now, however, is that they are not penalised for being part of the GMS scheme. That seems to be the message that is going out - that once you are in a GMS scheme you will be penalised and you must pay tax as if all the money coming in is for your benefit, when in most cases it goes into the partnership, paying for the salaries and the other expenses that are incurred in the running of the practice.

It is important that this is brought forward at the earliest possible date in order that we do not have people resigning out of the GMS scheme and do not have doctors retiring three or four years earlier than they should be. Everything must be done to keep the maximum number of GPs in the system. It should be remembered that we have had a 40% increase in population in the past 23 years. We do not have the same increase in the number of GPs. It is therefore important we keep every one of them in every way possible and make sure we do not penalise them for doing their work.

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