Jerry Buttimer (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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254. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will confirm that the levy on private pension funds will be brought to an end; if he will consider implementing measures to return the funds taken from such pension funds over a number of years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26133/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The original 0.6% stamp duty levy on pension fund assets ended last year. The additional levy of 0.15% which I introduced for 2014 and 2015, mainly to help continue to fund Jobs Initiative, will also end after this year.

The position is that the equivalent value of all of the money raised from the stamp duty levy has been used to fund the wide range of measures introduced in the Jobs Initiative to protect existing jobs and to help create new jobs and the Initiative has been a success in this regard.  The measures introduced include expenditure measures such as the Jobbridge and Springboard schemes, as well as a number of tax and PRSI incentives such as the reduction in the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% for the tourism and hospitality sectors and the halving of the lower employer PRSI rate.

While the pension fund levies have ceased and will be ceased as I have already outlined, I have no plans to repay the pension fund levy collected as set out in the question. The value of the funds raised by way of the levy have been used to protect and create jobs and this has helped to create the improving financial and economic position of the State. Taxpayers to whom the impact of the levy may have been passed on by the chargeable persons responsible for the payment of the levy (the pension scheme trustees etc) will benefit from the changes which I began in Budget 2015 and which will continue in future Budgets to reduce the income tax burden on low and middle income earners.