Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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67. To ask the Minister for Finance his plans to extend the sugar tax; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25775/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I have no plans to extend the sugar swetened drinks tax at this time.

The recently introduced tax on sugar-sweetened drinks commenced on 1 May 2018 and applies to water and juice based drinks with a sugar content of 5 grams per 100 mililitres or above.

The European Commission found that the introduction of the tax constituted no aid and further to that decision, a legislative amendment will be brought forward in this year's Finance Bill to impose a calcium threshold on certain exempted categories to ensure the comparability of exempted products to dairy.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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68. To ask the Minister for Finance the amount of revenue which would have been raised had an exit tax at a rate of 1%, 2%, 3%, 4% and 5% existed as outlined by Article 5 in the EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive in each year since 2010 based on the market value of assets transferred from Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25776/18]

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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69. To ask the Minister for Finance the value of intellectual property and non-intellectual property onshored here which would be subject to an exit tax as outlined by Article 5 in the EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive if these assets were transferred offshore in the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25777/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 68 and 69 together.

Following the publication of the OECD BEPS reports in October 2015, a decision was taken at EU level to introduce the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD) as part of a package of measures aimed at ensuring a common and co-ordinated approach to the introduction of the BEPS anti-avoidance measures across the EU Member States.

The first ATAD, presented in January 2016 and agreed by all Member States in July 2016, provided for five separate anti-avoidance measures, one of which is an exit tax, to be transposed on an agreed schedule between 2018 and 2023. Member States must introduce the ATAD exit tax, or bring existing exit taxes into alignment with the ATAD exit tax where relevant, no later than 1 January 2020.

The objective of the ATAD exit tax is to impose a charge to tax when a company migrates out of a State while holding assets, or makes certain transfers of assets out of a State, in circumstances where those assets have increased in value and therefore hold an unrealised capital gain.

The potential yields of an exit tax from 2010 to date at the Deputy’s proposed rates ranging from 1% to 5% cannot be determined with certainty as such a calculation would require information on the unrealised gains, if any, latent within the value of assets transferred. Similarly, any potential future exit tax yield from assets on-shored in recent years would depend on the increase in value of these assets, if any, before any future transfer offshore.

However I would note that in many cases, intangible assets such as licence rights and patents in the pharmaceutical and high-tech sectors have a finite life-span and depreciate over their useful lives – for example over the period for which a drug is protected by a patent or the period until an IT sector IP asset is superseded by technological advancements. Depreciating assets of this nature are unlikely to give rise to an exit tax on migration.