Results 15,641-15,660 of 26,610 for speaker:David Cullinane

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

David Cullinane: I want to go through very quickly some of the allowances that are available. In the briefing document received by members, much of the information is about the tax treatment of intellectual property. The first one is the capital allowances for intellectual property. What are those allowances for a company?

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

David Cullinane: What is the current position on that? There were changes, I believe in 2014, where the 80% cap was abolished but was brought back again. What is the current position?

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

David Cullinane: Okay, it the 80% cap is back again. With regard to the other capital allowances, what other allowances are available?

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

David Cullinane: One is 7% of the expenditure on an intellectual property asset for each year over 14 years, followed by a 2% reduction in year 15. Is that one of the allowances?

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

David Cullinane: I am looking at it now. There are capital allowances for intellectual property and tax relief for expenditure on research and development and I believe this was dealt with by a previous speaker earlier. Is the knowledge development box, KDB, separate?

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

David Cullinane: Could companies avail of the capital allowances, the tax relief on research and development and the knowledge development box or are they separate?

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

David Cullinane: With regard to the types of companies that have patents or royalties and that avail of the knowledge development box and other intellectual property allowances, is it fair to say they have a lower effective corporation tax rate?

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

David Cullinane: Compared with intellectual property and research and development, it is on the smaller scale.

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

David Cullinane: I will finish on a positive note. I do not know if Mr. Cody follows the World Economic Forum in Davos. Joseph Stiglitz called the Irish tax state an enabler of the global "race to the bottom" in terms of corporation tax code. Is this of concern to Mr. Cody?

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

David Cullinane: What of the Department of Finance? There were several Ministers in Davos also. They would have been there to hear some of the criticism.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (15 Feb 2018)

David Cullinane: At our last meeting, I asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to respond to claims that the university or people in it may have misled his office. He said at the time he was doing his own report. Obviously, we must come back to it at some point because we have dealt with it in the past. We have the internal audit report which makes 42 recommendations. The correspondence states 17 of...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (15 Feb 2018)

David Cullinane: Must we wait until we have the special report?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (15 Feb 2018)

David Cullinane: I welcome that the report has been published at last. Looking back to when we first dealt with this matter and, as a committee, put a spotlight on this issue, we might remind ourselves that we were told by the HEA that there was no problem and nothing to see. I felt there was pushback against members of this committee even asking questions. The attitude was pretty much one that we should...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (15 Feb 2018)

David Cullinane: The Chairman requested it. It was not a report, as such, but information on how much it costs the State to support it.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (15 Feb 2018)

David Cullinane: No, that was the point. We had a discussion on this last time and I think it was accepted that it was not as difficult as was being suggested. We will have to come back to it at some point, maybe we should wait until the report comes from Waterford, but Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the HEA are all players in this. We now have a report which makes changes and which...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (15 Feb 2018)

David Cullinane: I have a final contribution. As one of those who asked the questions and took an active interest in this, I want to put on the record that an awful lot of good work is being done by universities and institutes of technology in research and development, co-location and commercialising intellectual property. None of that is bad. Legitimate questions were asked about process, conflicts of...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (15 Feb 2018)

David Cullinane: Where did that come from?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (15 Feb 2018)

David Cullinane: To me, this very much chimes with what happens in the health sector where we get sent from Billy to Jack. For example, it could be the HSE, which then says it is a matter for the Department or the Minister. Nobody - not Knowledge Transfer Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, the Department or the HEA - can answer any questions.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (15 Feb 2018)

David Cullinane: I want clarification before this session about what we can or cannot deal with. Local authorities are not audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General's office. There is separate auditing. The principal funder is the Department and then there is the local government fund. We are dealing with the accounts for the then Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government....

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (15 Feb 2018)

David Cullinane: This is a large Department and it has responsibility for many areas. We could all approach this matter from different perspectives and raise different issues. I foresee problems. Some of the frustrations that we have already heard will be multiplied by 50 on the day if we all go off, prepare and come back only to be told that we cannot deal with those issues. The Accounting Officer will...