Gerard Murphy (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Question 123: To ask the Minister for Finance if he has plans to introduce greater transparency in tax expenditures in budget 2005. [29889/04]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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As I previously told the House, tax expenditures are regularly reviewed and are invariably looked at in the context of the annual budget and Finance Bill process to ensure they continue to meet the purpose or purposes for which they were introduced. Where tax changes are announced in the budget, they are set out in the summary of budget measures together with an estimated cost or yield, where possible. This will continue to be the position. This may often involve making a range of behavioural assumptions that may or may not prove valid and, in some cases, data to allow costing may not be available.

On the question of costs, the Deputy will be aware that my Department has been working closely with the Revenue Commissioners to investigate information and data to capture issues with a view to improving data quality and transparency without overburdening compliant taxpayers. On foot of this work, the Revenue Commissioners are introducing a number of changes to the forms which will yield additional information regarding the cost of some tax reliefs. Provisions were included in Finance Act 2004 to underpin these changes.

Changes were made in this area previously. The Finance Act 2003 stipulated that returns of income must henceforth be made for stallion stud fees and commercially managed woodlands. This will provide better data in this area and enable estimates of the tax foregone to be made.

In addition the use of electronic filing of tax returns by means of the Revenue on-line system, ROS, has been increasing and will continue to be encouraged. Returns filed using ROS can more readily accommodate information data capture. Additional cost information will assist in the regular review of these reliefs.