asked the Minister for Finance the estimated total cost to the Exchequer of tax relief on lump sums paid in the case of redundancies/retirements under the Government's redundancy scheme for public servants to date.
Written Answers. - Redundancies/Retirement Lump Sums Cost.
61.
Lump sum payments under the public service early retirement/severance programme were subject to the normal income tax regime governing retirement lump sums, severance payments etc. and no special tax reliefs were applied in respect of them. Any estimate of the impact on the Exchequer of the present tax treatment of such payments would depend on what system of taxation were introduced and the effects of the introduction of any such system on the uptake of such payments.
Assuming (i) that the full payments had been made chargeable to tax in full and (ii) that there had been no change in the uptake of the scheme, it is estimated that taxation of the payments would have yielded £62 million. These assumptions are unlikely to be realistic.