Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
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39. To ask the Minister for Finance the estimated yearly revenue which would be raised in the event of levies (details supplied), in tabular form. [24528/25]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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EU law sets out the framework under which Member States are obliged to apply excise duty on alcohol products. In Ireland the excise duty takes the form of Alcohol Products Tax (APT) as provided for in Chapter 1 of Part 2 of the Finance Act 2003.

Council Directive 92/83/EEC, also known as the “Alcohol Structures Directive”, lays down a harmonised approach for the application of excise duties to alcohol and alcoholic beverages in the EU. It defines categories of alcohol and alcoholic beverages and sets out the basis on which excise duties on such products are to be established. Under the legislation the rate of excise on a particular product depends on the category of alcoholic beverage and the product’s alcoholic strength (which may be expressed as the product’s alcohol content as a percentage of its volume).

The legislation does not allow scope for differentiating the taxation of alcohol products based on the type of place where they are consumed, for example different rates if sold in licensed premises or in off-licences. Therefore, levies of the type the Deputy is suggesting could not be achieved through the tax framework.

Further information about Alcohol Product Tax, including details of total volumes, applicable excise rates, and total liabilities by commodity and accounting period are available on the Revenue website:

www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/excise/alcohol/alcohol-products-tax.aspx

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
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40. To ask the Minister for Finance the estimated yearly revenue that would be raised in the event of VAT increases (details supplied) and for this information to be provided in tabular form. [24529/25]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The VAT rating of goods and services is subject to the requirements of the EU VAT Directive with which Irish VAT law is obliged to comply. In general, the Directive provides that all goods and services are liable to VAT at the standard rate unless they fall within the certain listed categories to which Member States may apply a lower rate. The wholesale or retail supply of alcohol products are not included in the categories of goods and services on which the EU Directive allows a lower rate of VAT, and so these supplies are liable to VAT at the standard rate, which in Ireland is currently 23%.

Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) of alcohol products is the policy responsibility of my colleague the Minister for Health. The purpose of MUP is to control the scope for cheap alcoholic products by setting the minimum price of alcoholic beverages based on the alcohol content. Therefore, changes in the MUP level typically affect the selling price of cheaper products only, and also affect consumer behaviour. I am informed by Revenue that traders are not required to separately identify the VAT generated from the sale or supply of specific products or services (such as alcohol products) in their periodic VAT returns. For these reasons Revenue does not have the information to estimate the likely VAT impact of potential changes to the MUP.

More detailed information in relation to the VAT treatment of alcohol products is also available on the Revenue website - www.revenue.ie/en/tax-professionals/tdm/value-added-tax/part03-taxable-transactions-goods-ica-services/Goods/goods-alcohol.pdf