Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Broadly speaking, the tax and the PRSI liabilities are charged on the profits that are generated. Where there are losses in a particular year, those losses are allowable in the year as deductible expenditure which results in the reduction or elimination of the tax and the PRSI liabilities. Senator Power's question is about carrying those losses forward for PRSI purposes but whether there are only 1,500 professional landlords, and I do not know the statistics, they are very significant and they earn significant streams of rental income. If this rule was to be applied to landlords both significant and smaller scale, the loss overall to the PRSI system would be very significant and therefore I cannot accept the amendment.