Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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225. To ask the Minister for Finance the estimated amount that could be raised by abolishing the Special Assignee Relief Programme, which was introduced in 2014 to provide a tax reduction to high earning persons who locate to Ireland for work purposes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33417/21]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The latest costs available for the Special Assignee Relief Programme (SARP), can be found in the 'Statistics on Special Assignee Relief Programme 2018' report which is published on the Revenue website.

According to that report, in 2018 SARP had an Exchequer cost of €42.4 million. This is the latest data available. I expect the cost for 2019 should be available later in the year.

The annual cost of the Special Assignee Relief Programme (SARP) for 2012 to 2018 (the most recent year for which data are available) is as follows:

It is not possible to estimate with any degree of reliability the likely savings that would accrue to the Exchequer in 2021 or in the years beyond that if the SARP were abolished. The reason for this is that there are currently no data available that would enable such a calculation to be made. The Deputy will be aware that in Finance Bill 2018 I re-imposed an upper salary ceiling of €1 million on the relief with effect from 1 January 2019 for new entrants and for existing beneficiaries of the programme from 1 January 2020. Such data as are available within the system relate to years before 2019 (no cap existed between 2015 and 2019). It would therefore be necessary to assess the cost-saving impact of this cap as well as taking account of the evolution in the take up of the relief during the current year in order to estimate the savings that might arise in 2021 from the abolition of the programme.

Finally, it should also be kept in mind that any estimation exercise of the type mentioned by the Deputy might also need to take into account changes in behaviour, including the loss of income tax from SARP-related jobs that may no longer arise, and the economic benefit provided by the relief.