Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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324. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will provide a breakdown for 2020 and to date in 2021, of the way in which persons chose to tax their motor vehicle, that is, quarterly, bi-annually and in full; the amount raised in motor tax over these time periods; and his plans to equalise the amount due per vehicle in view of the fact that a person that pays in full pays less tax than a person that pays quarterly. [50600/21]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Motor tax is payable on an annual, half-yearly or quarterly basis.  The rates applicable to the half-yearly and quarterly options are 55.5% and 28.25% of the annual charge, respectively. These relativities have remained generally consistent since the 1960's.

Of the 4,960,487 motor tax discs issued in 2020, 1,985,929 were annual, 730,453 were bi-annual and 2,244,104 were quarterly.

Of the 3,762,793 discs issued to the end of September 2021, 1,675,285 were annual, 548,870 were bi-annual and 1,538,638 were quarterly.

Gross motor tax receipts in 2020 were just under €940m.  Gross motor tax receipts to the end of September 2021 were almost €721m.

The loss to the Exchequer arising from the elimination of the additional charge for these options has been estimated at just under €41.3m, based on the volume of transactions for 2020.  The loss of income that would arise from changing these arrangements would have a negative impact on the total collected via motor tax and would have to be borne elsewhere in the motor tax system or through the taxation system generally.