Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 Jul 1992

Vol. 422 No. 4

Written Answers. - Contributions to Political Parties.

Ruairí Quinn

Question:

8 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to the declarations by representatives of beef industry companies that they gave substantial contributions to some political parties; if he can confirm that such contributions have been properly shown in the annual accounts of these companies as submitted to the Revenue Commissioners; if he will ensure that corporation tax relief was not obtained from the Revenue Commissioners in respect of such contributions; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

Minister for Finance (Mr. B. Ahern):

The Deputy will appreciate that the Revenue Commissioners are precluded by their confidentiality obligations from disclosure of the details of individual taxpayer's affairs except in certain specified circumstances. Outside of these circumstances it would not be appropriate to make public the detailed information to which the Deputy is referring. The circumstances allowing publication include certain appeals, prosecutions, judicial proceedings and settlement in lieu of court proceedings. These disclosure criteria will apply in the normal way in relation to matters arising in the beef inquiry.

Established practice has been that a Minister for Finance does not answer a Parliamentary Question about an individual's tax affairs, other than where the Deputy asking the question was acting on behalf of the taxpayer. It is my understanding that this is not the case in the present instance.

I can, however assure the Deputy that contributions made to political parties by the companies referred to in his question, or indeed by any other company, are not deductible for tax purposes.

Section 61 of the Income Tax Act, 1967 provides that only expenditure which is incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of a trade is allowable expenditure for tax purposes. Subscriptions to political parties would not be regarded as being incurred for the purposes of a trade and therefore, the companies referred to in the question would not have been entitled to a deduction from their corporation tax bill for any such subscriptions. If any such claim were made it would be refused for the reasons outlined. Attempts to disguise the contributions as allowable expenses would not succeed as these would generally be discovered in the course of an audit.