Results 21,901-21,920 of 27,019 for speaker:Michael Noonan

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: We will try to clarify the issues.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: As is regularly stated in replies to parliamentary questions, the Revenue Commissioners operate a principle of proportionality. When they are assessing proposals such as that made by the Senator, the yield from implementing the proposal would have to be more than the cost of implementing it. To date they consider that imposing a requirement on everybody to make a tax return would have a...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: It could impose a big burden on ordinary PAYE workers. I had a conversation with the Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners on this issue. I was suggesting, in the first instance, that anybody with an income in excess of a certain amount, such as €70,000 per annum, would be required to make a tax return. We might see where we were going if we did it that way. It probably would not be a...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: I will get information for Senator Ó Clochartaigh on the total tax take on a litre of diesel and a litre of petrol. I do not have such information to hand at present. In response to Senator Darragh O'Brien's query, there has been a reduction in the draw-down of fuels in the first two months of the year. The figure for petrol has reduced by approximately 6% in the first two months of the...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: The proposed administration charge of €500 is necessary to defray the costs of development and ongoing administration required for the efficient operation of the export refund scheme. The fee will enable development costs to be recouped as quickly as possible to minimise the burden on the taxpayer. In other countries, for example, Denmark, where a similar scheme exists, an administrative...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: Section 87 confirms the increase in the standard rate of VAT from 21% to 23% with effect from 1 January 2012. The standard VAT rate was increased in the budget to focus revenue raising on indirect taxation, which has a less adverse impact on economic activity and employment than income tax. The VAT increase is also in line with commitments made in the programme for Government and by the...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: They are my flying column.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: I will deal first with the issue as it stands in the recommendation and the section and will then deal with the general issue of tax expenditure as raised by Senators Barrett and Reilly. This section is designed to allow companies to attract and retain key people in order to facilitate the expansion of research and development activities in the State, thereby creating more jobs. Under the...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: I will respond to recommendations Nos. 12 and 13 together. The recommendations were previously raised in the Dáil debate on the Bill and my response remains the same. The focus of this provision is to assist in the development of new markets for Irish exports in the BRIC states. The Senator seems to be proposing that where an employer is either unable to demonstrate an increase in the...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: I thank Senator Reilly for not pressing her amendment. Senators are aware of the concept of the standard fund threshold, SFT, the maximum pension pot allowable for tax relief. It was introduced as a deterrent to prevent overfunding of supplementary pension provisions from tax relief sources and there are penal tax consequences where benefits are taken from pension funds exceeding the...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: Most countries support their film industry in one way or another and to remove support at this stage would put our industry at a competitive disadvantage. We plan, with the Revenue Commissioners, to review the scheme this year. Question put and agreed to.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: Section 25 extends the qualifying period in regard to section 486B, which deals with relief for investment in renewable energy generation. The scheme was due to expire on 31 December 2011 but has been extended to 31 December 2014. The scheme was originally set up in 1999 and it has the approval of the European Commission. My colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: There is one thing about the tide we can rely on; it comes in and it goes out, and it comes in again.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: It is not like wind energy. The big problem with wind energy is that when the wind stops blowing the base supply must be got back into but with the tide constantly coming and going, the turbines keep turning. The idea would be to install entire farms of these turbines under water. They are environmentally friendly and they do not make any noise. It looks like a great idea and is an Irish...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: The Senator knows it. The first three are going in along that coastline. That might be something we could do because we have no shortage of the tide coming and going here. While we are telling each other anecdotes, those of us who like to go swimming have been watching the tides since we were children. Do Senators know that the tide works like a pendulum? In the first hour it comes in at...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: As I said, the incentivisation of research and development is part of the package of attractions that many countries use to attract inward investment. The research and development credit in France is 50%, for example. Ours is 25%. We are not leading the race. The patent royalty exemption was abolished last year by my predecessor. The limits on qualifying outsourced research and...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: Section 68 confirms the increase introduced in the budget in the carbon tax component of mineral oil tax on petrol and auto diesel. The effect of the budget change was to increase the carbon tax for those fuels from €15 per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted to €20 per tonne. When VAT is included the increase on petrol amounts to just under 1.5 cent per litre and just over 1.5 cent per...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: The Senators raised a number of issues. On budget day the average litre of petrol cost €1.50, and then various people who opposed both the carbon tax and the increase in VAT in the budget made exaggerated claims of how much that contributed to increases in the price of a litre of petrol or diesel. It would reinforce one's views of the need to examine the teaching of mathematics in the...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: I heard a very well-known representative of the motor industry claim on RTE that the VAT increase had driven the price of a litre up to €1.60. Two per cent of €1.50 is €0.03, which does not result in an increase to €1.60. One can calculate this for oneself. Many of those who did not want the increases campaigned on the basis that all increases to the prices of diesel and petrol...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2012 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Michael Noonan: No. Is that to do with the Green Party or has there been a wider mood change? Fianna Fáil was a great advocate of protecting the environment and combating global warming until very recently.