Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael)
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75. To ask the Minister for Finance the amount currently earned in taxation on interest from crowdfunding loans to small and medium enterprises (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6549/17]

Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael)
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76. To ask the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to schemes in the UK such as (details supplied) which would allow small lenders that lend to Irish small and medium enterprises through vehicles such as to qualify for a tax reduction, either against an investment as a whole, or against small loans which deteriorate; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6550/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 75 and 76 together.

Schemes such as crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending to which the Deputy refers are not currently regulated activities in Ireland. In June 2014 the Central Bank of Ireland issued a Consumer Notice on Crowdfunding which alerts consumers to the fact that crowdfunding is not a regulated activity. The notice can be found via the following link: .

There are currently several crowdfunding platforms active in the Irish market and the Government recognises that crowdfunding can be a valuable source of funding for SMEs either as a complement to, or as an alternative to traditional bank finance. The European Commission recently published a detailed report which finds that several member states of the EU have developed, or are in the process of developing national regulatory regimes but currently there is no evidence of a firm proposal from the Commission to bring forward an EU regulatory initiative.

The Department of Finance is currently undertaking a detailed analysis of crowdfunding and is engaging with the Central Bank of Ireland in advance of holding a Public Consultation on the Regulation of Crowdfunding in Q1 2017. I am not in favour of considering changes to the tax treatment of investments made via such platforms in advance of the conclusion of this review and the regulation of the sector. The Deputy will also note that my Department has published guidelines for tax expenditure evaluation which need to be considered in relation to any new proposals for tax expenditures. Some of the key evaluation questions that need to be addressed as part of such evaluations are:

(i) What objective does the tax expenditure aim to achieve?

(ii) What market failure is being addressed?

(iii) Is a tax expenditure the best approach to address the market failure?

(iv) What economic effect is the tax expenditure likely to have?

(v) How much is it expected to cost?

In relation to the Deputy's second question, I am informed by Revenue that it is not possible to provide the information sought by the Deputy concerning the current yield to the Exchequer from the taxation of investment earnings from crowd-funding loans to small and medium enterprises. Income Tax returns do not seek the information required to enable this data to be separately identified.