Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 145: To ask the Minister for Finance the basis on which he is estimating that €10 million can be raised in 2011 and €20 million in a full year through the lowering of the standard fund threshold in relation to pension funds and the reason such estimates were not provided in reply to recent parliamentary questions [47931/10]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 146: To ask the Minister for Finance the basis on which he is estimating that €5 million can be raised in 2011 through the reduction of the overall life time limit on tax free lump sums to €200,000; and the reason such estimates were not provided in reply to recent parliamentary questions [47932/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 145 and 146 together.

In my response to previous questions from the Deputy in these matters in October last, I explained that there is currently no underlying data available to my Department or to the Revenue Commissioners on which to base reliable estimates of the savings across the various scenarios outlined by the Deputy. Information on the numbers and values of individual pension funds or benefits are not generally required to be supplied to the Revenue Commissioners by the administrators of pension schemes and personal pension arrangements. Likewise, information on all retirement lump sum payments is not required to be provided by pension administrators.

I indicated that my Department had approached the pensions industry with a view to obtaining data in these areas on which to base a response to the Deputy. To date, no data has been provided in response to that request.

In the meantime, in Budget 2011, I reduced the Standard Fund Threshold (SFT) by over 50% with transitional arrangements for those with relevant pension rights above the reduced threshold on Budget Day. In addition, I also changed the tax arrangements applying to retirement lump sums so that, among other things, amounts of retirement lump sums in excess of €200,000 and below 25% of the reduced SFT will be taxed at the standard rate of income tax.

For the reasons already outlined, the estimated yields from these measures are quite conservative, based as they are on incomplete data and using very broad assumptions.

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 147: To ask the Minister for Finance if the universal social charge will be applied to a single person in receipt of a State pension with an occupational pension of less than €4,004 that is, where their gross income is greater than €4,004 but where the gross income less the value of the State pension is less than the €4,004 threshold [47936/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The position is that payments from the Department of Social Protection such as the contributory and non-contributory State pension will be exempted from the Universal Social Charge and are not included in an individual's overall income for the purpose of the Universal Social Charge (USC). The legislation also provides that where an individual's total annual income which is chargeable to the USC is below €4,004 in the year of assessment, the USC will not apply.

Therefore, based on the information provided by the Deputy, a single person with an occupational pension of less than €4,004 per annum will not be subject to the USC.