Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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151. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will calculate the extra revenue raised by imposing a 12.5% minimum effective corporate tax rate on gross trading profits before deductions and allowances; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28559/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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With regard to the calculation requested by the Deputy, I would highlight that although a figure of 'gross trading profits' is included in the  detailed annual statistical reports published by the Revenue Commissioners for illustrative purposes, the concept is not generally recognised in Irish tax legislation and it is therefore not possible to accurately cost the Deputy's proposal.

In relation to effective rates more generally, the Deputy will be aware that my Department recently published a Technical Paper on Effective rates of Corporation Tax in Ireland.  This report is published on the Department's website and can be viewed at the following link:

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In attempting to assess the effective corporate tax rate that is applied to the total of company profits in Ireland, the Paper concludes that the approach based on national aggregate statistics is the most suitable.  Using that approach based on data from the Central Statistics Office and the Revenue Commissioners, the Report found that since 2003 the effective corporate tax rate has averaged 10.9% and 10.7% respectively.

While this percentage is lower than the 12.5% headline rate, this can be attributed to the availability of double taxation relief and a small number of corporate tax incentives such as the Research and Development Tax Credit and the Tax Relief for New Start-Up Companies for example.  The combined cost of these two incentives in 2012 was €283.6 million.