Results 10,341-10,360 of 28,162 for speaker:Catherine Murphy

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: We have had two sizeable pieces of correspondence on open disclosure and contingent liability of €2 billion and the State Claims Agency. We were told a pilot study was commenced eight years ago. If the open disclosure proposal was fully implemented, it could end up being a good model for reducing liability on the courts or legal side. Has that been factored in?

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: I thank the witness for the update and following through on some of the questions we asked last week. I am interested in the section on transfer pricing. That comes out of the report, Review of Ireland’s Corporation Tax Code, by Mr. Seamus Coffey. If transfer pricing were to be extended to non-trading transactions that would include transfer pricing examination of matters such as...

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: What bearing would the Coffey recommendation have and on what sector?

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: In respect of bank debts or liabilities, we read not long ago that one particular bank that had been bailed out would not have an expectation of a tax liability for about 20 years. Is there a way of disaggregating some elements of commercial trading? I refer to the banks. I can understand a small company may have accumulated debts and writes those debts off against taxes. That is...

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: Can I just expand a little on that? It would be quite useful to hear about the changes that were made in the UK with regard to smaller companies. Usually when there is a newspaper headline relating to corporate tax, the response is that a small number of companies pay the vast majority of corporate tax and that is actually the case. However, Dr. Keegan has drawn a distinction between close...

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: What difference has the knowledge development box made?

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: A couple of further questions occur to me, the first of which is on auditing research and development. Some companies operate on a leading edge basis. As they manufacture, research and development is happening. How is that audited?

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: People's concept of research and development is someone in a lab testing things, but many companies also have a production line or the line is their research and development.

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: Is that not just plain manufacturing?

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: I will pick up on Dr. Keegan's response to a point that was made about companies. He stated that, if money was still in a company, it would be subject to another tax after a certain time. Profitable multinationals are subject to tax. What happens to the money that is left in those companies?

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: It only-----

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: Obviously, the context of this discussion is the chapter from the Comptroller and Auditor General. We then wrote to a number of multinational companies and invited them to respond. It is worth pointing out that one or two of them were very complimentary about the large taxpayers' unit in Revenue.

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: It is worth saying they were very complimentary about the efficiency of the large case unit. We know that a small number of very large companies pay a sizeable portion of corporation tax. They fall in sectors such as financial, insurance, manufacturing including pharmaceutical, and information and communications. We also know the effective rate very much depends on what can be set aside...

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: It is one particular sector, however. It is not like one is buying new machines and those machines will produce something for three or four years. It is highly likely there will be a continuous demand for research in, and development of, drugs. Is that not the case? How does one audit it? It is probably Revenue.

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: I am just making the point that we are kind of losing out on either end. We are being very generous on one end because most of the tax collected from these companies will be collected from the people employed in the companies rather than the companies themselves. It is a big set aside. Yet, at the same time, on the other end, we do not get any advantage. I will move on to another area...

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: On banks and bank debt, not that long ago we saw a newspaper headline that one of the banks which had the benefit of surviving as a consequence of citizens bailing it out was not expected to pay any tax for the next 20 years. This was because it is able to write off its losses, which are our losses, against its own balance sheet. If I find at home a medical receipt from five years ago, as...

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: What does it bring in?

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: There is one other element on which I want to touch, that is, special purpose vehicles. It is not that long ago when regulators complained that they did not even know what some special purpose vehicles, SPVs, were used for. Did either Revenue or the Department consult or advise the Central Bank on the ways in which special purpose vehicles should be regulated?

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: Is Revenue satisfied that the regulators fully understand what they are regulating? The controversy about section 110 companies was heightened at one point and changes were made. Is Mr. Cody satisfied that they went far enough? Is he satisfied that there are no other special purpose vehicles being used?

Public Accounts Committee: Comptroller and Auditor General 2016 Report
Chapter 20: Corporation Tax Receipts (Resumed) (22 Feb 2018)

Catherine Murphy: Would Mr. Cody say Revenue has sufficient resources to do that work? It seems to be a matter of ensuring the resources are available to close loopholes as quickly as possible. Are the available resources adequate?