Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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173. To ask the Minister for Finance the amount IFSC-registered companies paid in corporation tax in 2012. [39309/13]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that the estimated corporation tax paid in 2012 by companies previously licensed to operate in the International Financial Services Centre is of the order of €456 million. Following the end of the IFSC tax regime, the corporation tax rate applying to international financial services activities increased from 10% to the standard rate of 12.5%, and therefore it is generally speaking no longer possible to distinguish corporation tax paid solely on IFSC activities from corporation tax paid on other income.

It should also be noted that the €456 million figure relates only to those companies that were once licensed under the preferential IFSC tax regime, which expired in 2005 and for which registrations ceased in 2002. I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that it is not possible to identify international financial services companies that have been established since the end of that regime as they are no longer licenced under a specific regime, and so the corporation tax paid by such companies is not included in the €456 million figure.