Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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101. To ask the Minister for Finance the estimated first and full year cost of increasing the rent a room tax relief scheme threshold by €1,000 intervals to €20,000. [27439/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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As the deputy may be aware, the numbers of those availing of the rent a room relief and the cost to the Exchequer can be found on the cost of tax expenditures report. The report can be located at the following link:

https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/tax-expenditures/costs-expenditures.aspx.

I am advised by Revenue that it is not possible to estimate the costs for the changes to the rent a room scheme as suggested by the Deputy.  In order to do so, Revenue would require knowledge of the number of potential claimants with rental income in excess of this amount. However, tax returns are only filed by those claiming under the current threshold and therefore no information is available to Revenue on the potential number of new claimants.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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102. To ask the Minister for Finance the estimated first and full year cost of increasing the home renovation incentive relief rate by 1.5% intervals up to 20%; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27440/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Home Renovation Incentive (HRI) is a scheme that allows home owners, landlords and local authority tenants to claim tax relief on qualifying works. The works must be completed by a tax-compliant contractor and be subject to 13.5% VAT. The HRI relief is paid in the form of a tax credit at 13.5% of qualifying expenditure, which can be set against Income Tax evenly over two years, provided the claimant has paid enough tax in each of the two years to claim it back. Where the full use of the credit cannot be made in those two years, the credit will be carried forward to later years. This rate of 13.5% is in line with the VAT rate so that it effectively reduces the rate of VAT to zero on qualifying works. HRI can be applied for up to 4 years after the qualifying works have been completed.

The additional costs of increases to the relief in the manner outlined by the Deputy are set out in the table.

The first year cost of these increases is approximately half of the full year cost due to the requirement to split this credit across a period of at least two years. These costs are based on the maximum amount of HRI credits available to be claimed in 2016.

The Deputy may wish to note that quarterly and annual HRI statistical reports can be found on Revenue’s website: https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/tax-expenditures/index.aspx.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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103. To ask the Minister for Finance the estimated first and full year cost of allowing landlords to offset current year rental losses arising under current Case V taxation rules against other taxable income in the same year. [27443/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Income is classified under a number of categories for taxation purposes and there are distinct rules for each category. As the Deputy notes, rental income from Irish property is taxed under Case V of Schedule D. The rules for Case V provide that landlords can carry forward rental losses for offset against future rental profits, but cannot offset rental losses against other net taxable income in the current year, other than rental profits from other Irish properties. Revenue have informed me that the manner in which losses are recorded on tax returns reflects the current structure of tax legislation, that is, Irish rental losses can only be offset against profits from Irish rental properties. As such, given the data which is available, it is not possible for Revenue to estimate the cost of allowing rental losses to be offset against non-rental profits.