Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 1 Mar 1994

Vol. 439 No. 5

Written Answers. - Tax Relief on Covenants.

Noel Ahern

Question:

76 Mr. N. Ahern asked the Minister for Finance for a breakdown of the various categories of cases using tax covenants, to include the total cost to parents of covenants to their own children for third level education, covenants to other children for third level education, family maintenance awards and others.

Minister for Finance (Mr. B. Ahern)

The breakdown of the cost of tax relief for covenants and the numbers of claimants, estimated by references to the current income tax year, is as follows:

Tax Relief for Covenants.

Type of Covenant	Number of Claimants	Amount Allowed	Cost
		£m	£m
Maintenance Payments	1,700	6.4	2.2
Natural Sciences	50	1.3	0.5
Other convenants	38,200	66.7	30.1
Total	39,950	74.4	32.8

These figures are provisional and are likely to be revised.

Covenants in favour of children in third level education cannot be identified separately but it is likely that they account for a large part of the category of "other covenants" in the table above.