Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 22: To ask the Minister for Finance if he will consider publishing an annual list of all tax expenditure; and their cost to the State in advance of Budget 2012. [27676/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Office of the Revenue Commissioners is the main source of statistics and data on tax incentives and expenditure. They provide costs of tax credits, allowances and reliefs in their Annual Statistical Reports. The most recent figures related to tax expenditures appear in the 2009 report, which sets out the total identifiable costs to the Exchequer of all income tax and corporation tax allowances, reliefs, exemptions and tax credits available for 2007 and 2008, the most recent year for which information is available. Details for the following year will be published as soon as they become available. In my response to Deputy Pearse Doherty's question of 7th June last on the cost of tax expenditures (PQ 14499) I outlined the position regarding the Commission on Taxation's comprehensive review of tax expenditures and the costings therein. In addition my Department periodically publishes aggregate data relating to tax expenditures, and as recently as July 2010 published a review of tax expenditures announced in Finance Bill 2010.

All tax expenditures are kept under review and as a matter of course form part of the Tax Strategy Group's (TSG) discussions in advance of the Budget. The TSG papers are subsequently published on the Department of Finance's tax policy website (www.taxpolicy.gov.ie ).

For these reasons I do not consider it appropriate to do as the Deputy asks but, as I have previously suggested, if there is any serious tax relief to which the Deputy can draw my attention, concerning which he believes the cost is great and the abolition thereof would lead to a significant yield, I will ask Revenue to provide as detailed a costing as possible.