Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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90. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will consider a higher rate of tax on excessive profits made by vulture funds, for example, where margins are greater than 50%; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17747/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The rates of corporation tax in Ireland are 12.5% for active trading income and 25% for other income.  This is long standing settled policy and the cornerstone of our tax system.  I do not have any plans to amend Ireland's corportation tax rates or introduce specific higher rates.

I understand that a number of the funds referred to would be 'qualifying companies' within the meaning of section 110 Taxes Consolidation Act 1997.  As such the profits of the qualifying company are chargeable to tax at 25% (under Schedule D, Case III) but are computed by reference to the rules applicable to trading companies (i.e. in accordance with the provisions of Schedule D, Case I).

On so-called "vulture funds" more generally, the Consumer Protection (Regulation of Credit Servicing Firms) Act, 2015 was enacted on 8 July 2015. It was introduced to fill the consumer protection gap where loans were sold by the original lender to an unregulated firm. The 2015 Act introduced a regulatory regime for a new type of entity called a 'credit servicing firm'.  Credit Servicing Firms are now subject to the provisions of Irish financial services law that apply to 'regulated financial service providers'. This ensures that relevant borrowers, whose loans are sold to third parties, maintain the same regulatory protections they had prior to the sale, including under the various statutory codes (such as the Consumer Protection Code, Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears, Code of Conduct for Business Lending to Small and Medium Enterprises and the Minimum Competency Code) issued by the Central Bank of Ireland and the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013 (Section 48) (Lending to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises) Regulations 2015 which comes into operation on 1 July 2016.