Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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180. To ask the Minister for Finance the reason expected receipts for corporation tax in October 2015 were profiled in the Exchequer returns as minus €3 million; his views on the sustainability of current strong corporation tax receipts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39187/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will appreciate, the Exchequer Returns profiles are generally prepared in early January and reflect the Budget day forecasts.  The rationale for the minus €3 million profiled for October was that repayments expected in October were expected to be slightly bigger than forecast collection.  These repayments had been identified to the Revenue Commissioners when the profiles were being produced.  However, the repayments did not materialise as expected. This was just part of the reason for the very strong over-performance recorded in October. 

There were also unexpected payments amounting to €350 million from a number of large companies due to better trading conditions and a number of early payments which were expected in November and December totalling €200 million.  

As the Deputy will be aware, corporation tax receipts are highly concentrated in the multinational sector.  However, it is important to point out that strong performance recorded in corporation tax receipts this year is relatively broad based. For example, there has been an increase of over 20 per cent in the number of companies paying between €100,000 and €1 million.  In addition, there has been an increase of over 20 per cent in the amount of tax paid by medium sized companies.  

In terms of the sustainability of the current strong corporation tax receipts, I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the level of corporation tax payments in 2015 are primarily not one-off.  That is, they enter the revenue base for 2016 and beyond.   Importantly, from a fiscal perspective, the corporation tax forecasts for 2016 contained in Budget 2016 shows a reversion towards growth in line with gross operating surplus, at about 8 per cent. This lends confidence to the achievement of the corporation tax forecast for 2016.