Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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To ask the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Question No.4 of 6 December 2012 in which he estimated a total revenue of €395 million from the taxation of child benefit, the rate and amount of tax a month that would be deducted from child benefit in the examples (detailed supplied) this information to be furnished in tabular form [57609/12]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As I stated in my reply to Parliamentary Question No.4 of 6 December 2012, the issue and the yield from taxing Child Benefit is fully dependent on resolving a number of significant and complex policy and legal issues before the question of implementing a charge to taxation on this payment can be considered. These policy issues include clearly determining who is the owner of the Child Benefit payment, whether by taxing the payment, there follows an entitlement to the PAYE tax credit, how the payment is treated for tax purposes in the hands of jointly assessed couples and legal issues surrounding the tax treatment of married couples and co-habiting couples.

In view of the considerable legal and policy issues involved, it is extremely difficult to estimate the tax liability that may arise in each specific case as a result of taxation of Child Benefit. However, if all of the above issues were resolved and it was assumed that the mother is the recipient and owner of the child benefit payment, then the taxation of Child Benefit would result in three possible tax outcomes:

1. An individual would pay no income tax on their child benefit as their tax credits would be sufficient to reduce their tax liability to zero.

2. An individual would pay tax on their child benefit at the standard rate of tax.

3. An individual would pay tax on their child benefit at the higher rate of tax.

The tableis provided purely for illustration purposes to demonstrate the tax liability that may arise in respect of a Child Benefit payment for one child under each of the different tax outcomes.

Furthermore, as I previous stated, I understand that the Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare, established by the Minister for Social Protection, has considered these and other issues in relation to Child Benefit in the context of a report on child and family income supports which is being considered by the Minister.