Results 13,341-13,360 of 27,073 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Finance Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We have had this debate often and we will have it again. A survey was carried out recently that showed that eight people out of ten in the country want to see a wealth tax. Therefore, the Minister might consider it, even in the interest of what the majority of people want. The people want it particularly because the level of household wealth has grown by 51% since the trough in 2013. The...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I wish to correct the record. I mentioned that I was talking to Mr. Gerard McSorley, who is a fine Irish actor, but I was actually talking about Mr. Sorley McCaughey of Christian Aid, who authored that good paper. The game is up on the "race to the bottom" role that Ireland has played. The noose is tightening. Frankly, it is about time the Government got with the programme. We can argue...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Deputy Wallace has made most of the salient points already but Christian Aid - and Gerard McSorley, in particular, who phoned me recently to brief me on this - deserves a lot of credit for a very good paper exposing this new tax avoidance structure using the double taxation treaties between ourselves and Malta. I would just add two points on that. First, Mr. Eddie Hobbs phoned me recently....

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The German playwright, Bertolt Brecht, stated that the crime of robbing a bank is absolutely nothing compared with the crime of owning one. Never was a truer word said when we consider what the banks have done and allowed to be done to the people of this country in recent years. The people of this country have paid a bitter price in the crash of the economy for the reckless gambling and...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Government may fall over which Ministers knew what in connection with the emails in regard to Maurice McCabe and so on. This, in my opinion, is an even bigger scandal and, at the very least, it needs to be investigated. It is inexplicable that the then Minister, Deputy Noonan, in 2014 changed the tax code around intangible assets to essentially neutralise the impact of closing down the...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Yes.

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: One of the things to which Seamus Coffey also alludes, which the Minister and everyone else knows, is that the value ascribed to these intangible assets, and the key is in the word "intangible", as in "we do not know", is ascribed by the company itself. That is what happens. The company gives these assets precisely the value that is necessary to ensure that it pays no tax. That is the way...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I move amendment No. 39:In page 41, between lines 35 and 36, to insert the following: "(3) The Minister shall, within 3 months of the passing of this Act, bring a report on the amount of tax revenue foregone as a result of the changes to capital allowances relating to intangible assets made in budget 2014 and the re-introduction of the 80 per cent cap in such allowances in Budget 2018, the...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It would also be helpful if he read the original speaking note again. What I heard disturbed me but we do not have the note in front of us to examine it.

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That answer is in no way satisfactory. We do not have to hand the Minister's initial note in order to go through it. This is the problem which I raised yesterday and Deputy Burton has raised it again. We have amendments before us, which may be very substantial, that were not in the initial draft Bill but could have significant implications and we have not been given a proper explanatory...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: If I understand the Minister correctly, what he says is a technical amendment is actually an amendment of very serious substance because we want retrospection. The Minister does not. We know that but when it comes to the section 110 tax break we absolutely want retrospection, as much of it as we can get because the section 110 tax break has been ruthlessly exploited by vulture funds to be,...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (23 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We were discussing an amendment where we propose to deal with the enormous loopholes being exploited by a small number of multinational companies to avoid tax by having a report produced on these loopholes, with the intent of closing them. That would give the people in this country billions of euro for housing, health and education, which we need so badly. The report would examine how a...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: When we discuss the amendment on intangible assets tomorrow, we will discuss the specifics of one particular loophole. I suggest the Minister read Mr. Seamus Coffey's papers on this issue. He points out, for example, that following their introduction, the other changes in the area of intangible assets provided for in successive budgets from 2009 onwards applied to all claims made under the...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Let us be absolutely clear: we want jobs, if there are decent well-paid jobs, from wherever they might come. However, those companies making astronomical profits should pay a fair share in taxes. The Minister has yet again quoted figures to do with effective rates and so on. I will put some figures to the Minister. In 2015 the figure for gross trading profits plus other income equalled...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: He suggested we could do it by closing the loopholes.

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I move amendment No. 32:In page 30, after line 40, to insert the following:“19.The Minister shall within 6 months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before the Dáil a report on the impact of Irish Real Estate Funds and Real Estate Investment Trusts on the Irish Property and Housing sector and the effective tax rates on the profits paid by these entities and their...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I move amendment No. 34:In page 30, after line 40, to insert the following: "19.(1) The Minister shall within 6 months of the passing of this Act, bring a report on the potential to raise additional Corporation Tax revenue by closing down loopholes, examining the extent, legitimacy and abuse of all corporate tax expenditures, exemptions, allowances and deductions, such as losses forward,...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: There are two Ministers sitting there. The second Minister could answer.

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: He is another Teachta Dála so he can answer the question. We have withdrawn some previous amendments on foot of commitments by the Government to look at these things and I note the Government has conceded to producing a report on the vacant homes tax. As far as I am concerned, this is part of an array, to use PwC's term, of things that we need to know more information about, for...

Finance Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: My comments are on a similar note. The points were made in the earlier discussion as well. We have a similar amendment. What has happened in recent years in this country is really extraordinary. The approach that Fine Gael and its partners, the Labour Party and the Independent Alliance, have taken to the property sector is quite extraordinary given what had happened previously. We could...