Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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246. To ask the Minister for Finance the total service charge for the Revenue Commissioners on credit card payments, that is, persons who paid the Revenue Commissioners money due by using credit cards for 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016 to date. [25004/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Section 960EA of the 1997 Taxes consolidation Act provides for the payment of tax using certain prescribed payment methods, including credit cards. Section 960EA also stipulates that the transaction costs required by the necessary service providers, i.e. the merchant acquirer and the technical connection support, can be passed to the taxpayer. This is consistent with the approach adopted by other Revenue administrations.

Revenue currently applies a transaction fee of 1.1% to all tax payments made by credit card. The fee was until very recently (July 2016) administered under the terms of a Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) agreement with service providers in respect of Public Sector payments (not just Revenue payments). The fee covers the service providers' costs only and Revenue does not gain any financial advantage from the charge. The terms of the LGMA's agreement with the service providers allowed for a reduction in cost depending on the volume and value of transactions processed. This facilitated a reduction in fees from 1.49% to 1.1% in October 2014.

Since July 2016 Revenue is operating its credit card payment option under the terms of a new Public Service level contract, which was negotiated with the relevant service providers by the Office of Government Procurement. The new contract also facilitates reductions in transaction fees based on value and volume and Revenue is optimistic that further reductions to the 1.1% rate can be achieved in the short to medium term.

The following table sets out the total number of credit card payments and transaction charges for 2012 to 2016 (year to date).