Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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96. To ask the Minister for Finance the estimated cost of full tax relief on trade union subscriptions. [33722/21]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Tax relief for Trade Union subscriptions was previously provided for under section 472C of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997. The relief was introduced in 2001 and abolished from 2011 onwards.

A review of the appropriate treatment for tax purposes of trade union subscriptions and professional body fees was carried out by my Department in 2016 and included in the 2016 report on tax expenditures published on Budget day 2016.

The review concluded that:

"...analysis of the scheme using the principles laid down by the Department’s Tax Expenditure Guidelines shows that it fails to reach the evaluation threshold to warrant introduction in this manner.

The reinstatement of this tax relief would have no justifiable policy rationale and does not express a defined policy objective. Given that individuals join trade unions largely for the well-known benefits of membership, and the potential value of the relief to an individual would equate to just over €1 per week, this scheme would have little to no incentive effect on the numbers choosing to join. There is no specific market failure that needs to be addressed by such a scheme, and it would consist largely of deadweight."

I am advised by Revenue that there are no current data available from tax returns on the number of taxpayers with union subscriptions or the cost of their individual union subscriptions. Therefore, there is no basis for Revenue on which to estimate a cost for this measure.

The following table sets out details of the cost of the tax relief for trade union subscriptions in the seven years immediately prior to its end: