Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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174. To ask the Minister for Finance the annual cost of the research and development tax credit for the past five years; the number of companies that availed of the scheme in each of the years by multinational companies and SME companies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30801/19]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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175. To ask the Minister for Finance the annual cost of the Knowledge Development Box in each year since its creation; the number of companies that availed of the scheme in each of the years by multinational companies and SME companies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30802/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 174 and 175 together.

I note that the Deputy previously received a response to these two questions in Parliamentary Questions 54 and 55 of 30 May 2019. No further data has become available in respect of these reliefs since 30 May.

I am advised by Revenue that the annual cost of the Research and Development (R&D) tax credit and the number of companies that availed of it for years up to 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, is published on the Revenue website at the following link:

https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/tax-expenditures/r-and-d-tax-credits.aspx. 

The available information in respect of multinational and SME companies is split between companies administered by Revenue’s Large Corporates Division (LCD) and non-LCD companies. Most of the companies administered by LCD are multinational companies. Also shown is the distribution of the R&D claims by the number of employees of the claimant companies.

A review of the research and development tax credit is being undertaken by my Department in 2019. This review will examine the interaction of SMEs with the credit as part of its scope.

In relation to the Knowledge Development Box (KDB), the number of claimants and cost are published in Revenue’s recent paper on 2018 Corporation Tax payments and 2017 tax returns, which is available on the Revenue website at link https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/documents/research/ct-analysis-2019.pdf (Table 13 shows the KDB claims). Due to the small numbers of taxpayers claiming KDB, Revenue cannot comment further on the size of the claimant companies.

The Deputy may be aware that a claimant company has a period of up to 24 months to make a claim for KDB relief. It is anticipated that companies will make use of the 24 month time frame available, therefore more claims in respect of the year ended 31 December 2017 may be made by September 2019.