Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 26 September 2013
91. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Finance the revenue that would be raised by reducing the pension fund standard fund threshold to €1.2 million; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40279/13]
View answerThe Standard Fund Threshold (SFT) is the maximum allowable pension fund on retirement for tax purposes which was introduced in Budget and Finance Act 2006 to prevent over-funding of pensions through tax-relieved arrangements. Information on the numbers and values of individual pension funds or on individual accrued benefits are not generally required to be supplied to the Revenue Commissioners by the administrators of pension schemes and personal pension arrangements. There is, therefore, no underlying data readily available to my Department or to the Revenue Commissioners on which to base reliable estimates of the savings that would arise specifically from a change to the SFT of the magnitude indicated in the question.
The Deputy will be aware of the announcement which I made in my Budget 2013 speech that changes to the SFT regime or other possible changes to give effect to the commitment in the Programme for Government to cap taxpayers’ subsidies for pension schemes which deliver pension income of more than €60,000 will be put in place in 2014. The extent of the changes required, which are still under consideration, may involve more than simply reducing the SFT and this examination also involves an analysis of data provided from various sources to establish as reliable an estimate as possible of the likely tax savings or yield to the Exchequer.
