Results 12,261-12,280 of 36,274 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: That is the way these things go. As I said yesterday, I am frustrated that we are still dealing with this issue and that these fund structures which are having an impact on both the commercial and residential property market do not pay an appropriate level of tax. I acknowledge that the Minister is not going to accept the amendment, but I wish to give some information on these structures. ...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I am aware that IREFs will have to report but that does not take away from the statistics. There was a legal obligation on them to report if there was a taxable event and, therefore, we have to assume that the other IREFs did not incur a taxable event at the time. It is still the case that for IREFs which had a taxable event, dividends were disbursed. Some €649 million was disbursed...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Yes.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I am going to have to press this amendment.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I move amendment No. 76: In page 84, between lines 22 and 23, to insert the following: “Report on Capital Gains Tax exemption or reduction 38.The Minister shall, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on a possible Capital Gains Tax exemption or reduction in cases where a carer moves into a relative’s home to care...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: The Minister is saying he will look at it again.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Is this the section on tobacco excise?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I have a couple questions on the section, the first of which looks backwards. I support the increase in excise on tobacco products. Can the Minister or Revenue indicate whether last year's 50 cent increase delivered the €57 million increase in revenue that was anticipated at the time and if it came in on target? Regardless of which policy we adopt, and I support this change, it is...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Does the Minister or the Revenue Commissioners have any statistics on the performance of this tax head in 2019? Do we know, for example, if the forecast for 2019, which was around €64 million in additional revenue, if memory serves me, was accurate? Have we achieved that? I assume that in terms of 2017 and 2018, it is hard to read those years because the plain packaging of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I agree with the section and I agree with the policy but this is a very tricky issue. I have tabled an amendment on this and believe that a serious piece of research into this area would be very valuable in the context of the figures provided by Revenue, particularly against the backdrop of Brexit. As I commented earlier, with duty free, the landscape will change dramatically. In the...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I welcome that statement by the Minister. Even outside the considerations of Brexit, there is an issue here. If the statistics show that illegally consumed cigarettes, purchased outside the jurisdiction, have increased by roughly 3% and illicit cigarettes by 2% in the same period, it is a 5% increase but revenue for 2019 seems to be stable, to within €30 million of what was...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: This relates to the increase in carbon taxes. As I stated about the increase in excise duty on tobacco products, taxation can have the effect of increasing revenue or changing behaviour. In some cases it can do both. However, this carbon tax needs to be about changing behaviour because of the climate emergency. The reality is that this increase will have little, if any, effect on...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: The fuel allowance payment does not necessarily go to the lowest income deciles in the State. The fuel allowance is particularly paid to those of an older age and those on long-term social welfare benefits. However, many of those identified in the ESRI report as being on the lowest incomes are not in receipt of fuel the allowance because they do not qualify for them. I would like the...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Does the Minister accept that households on some of the lowest incomes in the State do not receive the fuel allowance?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: There is, therefore, no protection in this budget for those households the ESRI has said the Government will make poorer as a result of this measure.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: What about those people?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Does the Minister accept that fewer than half of the households on the lowest 10% of incomes receive the fuel allowance payment?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I made that clear in the point I made about taxation measures and whether the Government wants to raise revenue, as this will do, and have the effect of making those households, including more than half of those households on the lowest 10% of incomes in the State which do not get any fuel allowance payment that the Government will now make poorer. There is an argument in the area of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Taxation has an effect on behavioural change but people need to be provided with the changes and those are not in place. We supported the tax on sugar and sweetened drinks because there was an alternative. We support increased excise duty on tobacco products because there is an alternative. We do not support an increase in home heating oil, coal and petrol at this point in time because...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: It is the experts the Minister talks about who argue for an increase in carbon tax. Does the Minister know who founded it? Let me tell him. It was founded by ExxonMobil and Shell among others. Oil exploration companies founded this body. I do not suggest its comments are not valid but let us be clear that the major polluters in the world support this measure and welcome it because of the...