Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 342: To ask the Minister for Finance the cost to the Exchequer, in terms of tax forgone, for each year from 1997 to date in respect of approved retirement funds, ARFs, for persons with incomes in excess of €100,000 in bands of €10,000, setting out the numbers of such beneficiaries in each income band and the cost of the tax forgone for each income band. [10111/05]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Finance Act 1999 made a number of changes to the structure of pension arrangements by introducing additional options for the holders of personal pensions and certain holders of occupational pension schemes. Traditionally the types of benefits available on retirement for such persons comprised a lump sum, a pension for life and an annuity for dependants. Under the new arrangements such a pensioner can on retirement, subject to conditions, use his or her accumulated pension fund to purchase an annuity, have it paid directly to him or herself or have it placed in an approved retirement fund, ARF, or, in certain circumstances, into an approved minimum retirement fund, AMRF.

Funds placed in an ARF, or AMRF, can only come from an individual's approved pension arrangement. Thus, it is not possible to pay funds directly into an ARF. Tax relief is available for contributions made to an approved pension arrangement prior to retirement. Funds placed in an ARF have, therefore, already been tax relieved at the time the contributions to those pension products were made. In the same manner as for pension funds generally, income and gains arising in an ARF are exempt from income tax and capital gains tax so long as they are held within the ARF. Any withdrawals from the ARF are subject to tax at the person's marginal rate of income tax. The same rules apply to AMRFs except that the capital, as distinct from the income, may not be withdrawn from an AMRF until the individual reaches the age of 75.

As there is no requirement in law for qualifying fund managers in relation to ARFs to provide the Revenue Commissioners with details of the amount of funds held in such investment vehicles or of the income and gains arising on such funds, information along the lines requested by the Deputy is not available to the Revenue Commissioners.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 343: To ask the Minister for Finance the cost in terms of tax forgone for each year from 1997 to date in respect of pension fund expenditure by employers on behalf of their employees for people with incomes in excess of €100,000 in bands of €10,000 setting out the number of employees so benefiting in each income band and the cost to the State of the tax forgone for each income band. [10112/05]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 344: To ask the Minister for Finance the cost in terms of tax forgone for each year from 1997 to date of the provision of the various pension tax reliefs; the beneficiaries of such tax reliefs for persons with income in excess of €100,000 in bands of €10,000 setting out the numbers of employees so benefiting in each income band and the cost to the State of the tax forgone for each income band. [10113/05]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 343 and 344 together.

It is not possible to provide disaggregated figures in regard to the take-up of the tax relief for all pension contributions across different income categories because the relevant data in regard to contributions is not captured in such a way as to make this possible.

Disaggregated data is only available in respect of the tax relief for contributions to retirement annuity contracts, RACs. RACs are personal pensions used by the self-employed and by employees who are not in pensionable employment. The data are as follows:

For the short income tax year of 2001 a distribution by income ranges of the claim amounts, amounts of tax relief and average deductions for tax relief for retirement annuity contracts is contained in the following table.

On the other hand, with regard to occupational pensions, that is, schemes set up by the employer, the figures in respect of employee and employer contributions are particularly tentative and are available only in aggregate form.

Tax relief for pension contributions by employees is normally given by way of a deduction from total income in arriving at income for tax purposes, that is, the income for tax purposes of employees is net of their pension contributions, the "net pay" arrangement. The employer's contributions are an allowable deduction from profits and are not specifically recorded in Revenue statistics. However, provisions were included in Finance Act 2004 with a view to improving data quality and transparency without overburdening taxpayers-employers. The Act includes provisions that require employers to provide data on superannuation contributions in the P35 form to be filed by employers in February 2006. The following table outlines the very tentative figures currently available to the Revenue Commissioners.