Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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76. To ask the Minister for Finance to outline the details and rationale for extending the rent relief to pre-letting expenses announced as part of Budget 2025; the number of people that will benefit from this relief; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40640/24]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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Section 97A Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, introduced in Finance Act 2017, allows a deduction (capped at €10,000 per premises) from rental income for certain pre-letting expenditure on properties which have been vacant for at least six months and are subsequently let. To qualify, the expenditure must be incurred in the twelve months immediately prior to the letting.

Relief for pre-letting expenses for landlords is being extended to continue to help owners of vacant property to bring that accommodation into the rental system increasing the overall supply of rental accommodation.

As the measure is demand led, it is not possible to state how many claims will be made in the future. However, the number of people who have availed of this relief is available on Revenue's Cost of Tax Expenditures Table at the below link:

.

For the ease of the Deputy I have provided a table of the number of people who have availed of the relief from inception of the scheme to 2022 (the most recent date for which data are available) below:

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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77. To ask the Minister for Finance if a developer will be exempt from the residential zoned land tax if they are leasing the land for economic activity such as farming; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40642/24]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT) applies to land zoned for residential development, which also has the necessary services in place for the development of housing. The aim of this tax is to increase the supply of land for building. It will be charged at 3% of the market value of the land every year.

The tax will be due and payable from 2025 onwards in respect of land which fell within the scope of the tax on or before 1 January 2022, or which first became both zoned for residential use and serviced in the course of 2022, as where land is zoned or serviced after 1 January 2022, the tax will be first due in the third year after the year in which it comes within scope.

There are existing exemptions that apply to RZLT one such exemption applies to land that is within the scope of the tax but is subject to a contract that was entered into prior to 1 January 2022. The period of the relevant contract is deemed to be the period during which development is precluded under the terms of the contract.

For 2025, if landowners seek to have their land rezoned, in order to reflect economic activity they carry out on their land, an exemption to the Residential Zoned Land Tax will apply for one liability. The exemption and rezoning opportunity will be supported by guidelines issued by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to local authorities. The guidelines will indicate that local authorities should consider and accommodate rezoning requests in situations where landowners seek to continue undertaking existing economic activity.