Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

No, please a Leas-Chathaoirligh, I ask you to bear with me. It would result in a small number of the 3,000 or more people who quality for the exemption being excluded in future years. This would not save the State a significant amount of money. However, from the perspective of the integrity of our taxation system, particularly at a time of economic hardship for so many, it would send an important message. We have already had an unfortunate controversy in recent weeks arising from the treatment of student nurses, contrasting starkly with the pay rises handed to Ministers, judges and other highly paid public servants.

This recommendation would have helped - and if it is brought forward on Report Stage by the Government it will help - to undo in a small way the damage done by these controversies by ensuring that high-earning individuals on high wages, funded by taxpayers cannot avail of special treatment.

The current scheme operates under section 195 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, which allows income from the sale of artistic works which have cultural and artistic merit to be exempted from income tax in certain circumstances, up to a limit, as the Minister of State knows, of €50,000 tax free in the year in which the exemption is granted by Revenue. Applications are made annually in respect of specific works, for example, a book, a play, a collection of art works and so on, rather than on a blanket basis for all works produced by an individual artist.

A Leas-Chathaoirligh, you will be interested to know that what does or does not qualify as having cultural or artistic merit is assessed by the Revenue Commissioners but with advice from the Arts Council based on a set of guidelines put in place by the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. You will also be interested to know that on at least one occasion, the Arts Council has expressed concern about how Revenue is interpreting the meaning and scope of the artist tax exemption. That is why this important recommendation was brought before the House.

The number of exemptions granted by Revenue has grown every year in recent years, rising from 2,840 in 2015 to 3,270 in 2018. According to figures provided to the Dáil recently by the Minister for Finance, the total amount of tax forgone under the scheme is an average of about €11 million per annum over the past five years, which is a significant amount of money.