Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 11 Nov 1998

Vol. 496 No. 4

Written Answers. - Tax Reliefs.

Richard Bruton

Question:

227 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Finance the number of applications to date in 1998 under the provision introduced in the 1997 budget to give tax relief to disadvantaged schools; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23138/98]

Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy)

Section 17 of the Finance Act, 1998, which I introduced last year provides for relief from income tax and corporation tax for gifts of money made on or after 6 April 1998 to "designated schools". A "designated school" is a primary or post-primary school which is in receipt of enhanced grants from the Department of Education and Science by reason of the fact that a substantial proportion of its students are socially or economically disadvantaged.

Relief is granted to an individual at the standard rate of tax on the aggregate gifts of a minimum amount of £1,000 in a single year of assessment. Relief is granted to a company making a gift to "designated schools", where the aggregate amount is between £250 and £10,000 to any one school, subject to an overall limit of £50,000 or 10 per cent of the company's profit where gifts are given to more than one designated school. The relief is granted by treating the gift as a trading expense of the company for tax purposes.

The Revenue Commissioners have provided a new computer code to process the relief to individuals. The first year in which individuals can claim the relief is the 1998-9 tax year. Self-employed individuals have not yet filed their tax return for the tax year 1998-9. The due date for filing those returns is 31 January 2000. Accordingly, there are no claims for the relief yet from self employed individuals.

The position as regards PAYE taxpayers who have made a claim to have the relief included in their current certificate of tax free allowances is as follows: the total number of applications from PAYE individuals to date is three; the total amount of donations on which relief was claimed is £2,045.

The Revenue Commissioners have informed me that while the number of applications received and processed from PAYE workers has been low, it is anticipated that most claims for relief will be made in individual end of year tax returns. It is expected that the figure will increase when the end of year reviews are carried out after the end of the 1998-99 tax year.

The position as regards relief due to companies is the same as that for the self-employed individuals i.e. the returns from the companies in question have not yet been lodged. Because of the nature of the relief for companies (a trading expense rather than a coded figure) it will prove difficult to extract these figures.