Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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319.To ask the Minister for Finance the status of the review of deposit interest retention tax and its related exemptions and conditions; when this was completed; if a further review is proposed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31606/24]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will be aware that Deposit Interest Retention Tax (DIRT) is deducted at source by deposit takers (e.g. banks, building societies, credit unions, An Post, etc.) from interest paid or credited on deposits of Irish residents. DIRT is currently charged at 33%. DIRT has been considered in a number of reviews.

In 2018, my Department carried out a review of the taxation of DIRT and Life Assurance Exit Tax (available at: ). A further review was again undertaken in the 2020 TSG paper (). These reviews, however, did not consider the exemptions from DIRT in detail.

Interest is exempted from DIRT in a number of circumstances, including where an account is held by an individual where the individual or his or her spouse or civil partner is aged 65 years or older, and his or her total income in a year (including interest earned) is below the relevant income tax annual age exemption limit.

The annual exemption limits are €18,000 in the case of a single person and €36,000 in the case of a married couple or civil partnership.

These exemption limits were recently considered as part of the Review of the Personal Tax System carried out by my Department last year. The review is available at .

No further review is currently proposed at this time.

As with all tax policy, DIRT and its exemptions will be kept under review throughout the annual budgetary and Finance Bill process.