Results 1,321-1,340 of 27,019 for speaker:Michael Noonan

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: The IP did not rest in Ireland at the time.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: If we are successful, as in a normal court case, we will seek our costs. Whether we get them will be a matter for the court. It is normal if one wins to seek one's costs and get them.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: No, because the legal position is that it is a methodology to recover state aid that was improperly paid rather than tax. The Commission considers it purely from a state aid perspective.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: The Department of Finance, but mostly based on technical work by the Revenue Commissioners. The Commission has set out a methodology for how the calculation should be made over a ten-year period. It is quite complex.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: It is asking the State to recover what it regards as improperly paid state aid to the tune of approximately €13 billion by using a methodology designed and set out by itself but it is a matter of law in state aid cases that one recovers the amount before the appeal takes place.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: Yes. It is complicated. It it said that because the matter is under appeal, the sum should be put in an escrow account and then go to the winner of the court case. It has to be recovered up-front. One cannot wait to see the result of the court case before one recovers it; that is the law.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: I do not like to attribute motives to the Commission but there is a general move in the Commission as a whole to extend its power and remit. I see this as part of that. I am not saying the Commission does not believe what it is doing or is not acting from good motives or genuinely. It is a different perspective. Point 7 of the document we published in the late autumn to set out the grounds...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: There is always a possibility of litigation coming from one quarter or another but we consider it to be unlikely. It could occur.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: There is no suggestion that it would and there is no conversation in that direction.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: No.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: Windfall amounts such as this cannot be used for ongoing and recurring expenditure. After that it would be a matter of argument between a different Commission and the Irish authorities as to whether a portion could be attributed to capital projects. That is unclear. The fiscal rules we have signed up to under the Stability and Growth Pact would deem this to be once-off revenue and cannot...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: No, I have not seen any analysis of that. Everyone's tax affairs is confidential, whether personal or corporate tax affairs, and the Revenue is obliged to keep the tax affairs and the tax details of all companies confidential. I would not have access to confidential data. When the Revenue gives me information it does it globally, referring to the sectors rather than individual companies....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: I do not think we can recoup. Section 110 of the 1997 Act was designed to make Dublin, in particular, but Ireland in general, attractive as a location for financial services. That was the intent of the section. The section was then misapplied on the advice of tax lawyers to property portfolios but as I said to Deputy McGrath it was not clear that was being done until approximately the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: No. There are no penalties. The amount misapplied is recovered.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: It is for the State to recover under the legal direction from the Commission. In other words, we have a legal obligation to recover if it is deemed to be state aid, and we have to recover before the legal appeal and give it back if the appeal is won.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: I would have thought initially that all the recovery would be due to Ireland. That was my initial response. However, the Commission introduced the idea that other countries in Europe might have a claim on the €13 billion but the Commissioner now is less emphatic about the amount. It would be for the authorities in the other countries to make the claim. There is an uncertainty about...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: The discussions are ongoing with Apple, and it are co-operating. If it did not co-operate we could take enforcement proceedings in the Irish courts and have the force of law to collect, but we are not going there. We think that as the details are resolved, Apple will transfer money to the escrow account.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: No. The Revenue's position was that there was nothing in any of the files, including Apple, that would give rise to the initiation of an inquiry. I do not have access. As I stated previously, these files contain data that are confidential between the companies and Revenue, but what the Commissioner said was there was nothing in this documentation that was examined by the Commission which...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: It was indicated to us some time in early summer that the ruling would come out in the early autumn, in September-October but more likely to be in September. I am speaking from memory but I think I put this on the record previously. When we got the call some time in late August that it would probably come out in the first days of September we were just surprised at the timing, but not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: Minister for Finance and Office of the Revenue Commissioners (2 Feb 2017)

Michael Noonan: No. We had not done any calculation on that basis. Speaking personally, I was surprised that there was a finding that the profits outside Ireland and in all those countries where profits were made were attributed to Ireland and that there was a responsibility for their collection attributed to Ireland.