Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 December 2013
145. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Finance the number of persons that have availed of section 481, film tax relief, to date in 2013; the number of jobs supported by the relief; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53951/13]
View answerI am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that the relevant available information is that there were 2,538 investments in Section 481 film tax relief to date for the tax year 2013. Statistics are not available showing the actual number of persons employed in the film industry. Files maintained by the Revenue Commissioners provide data on the number of individuals that work on productions in a given year. These show that in the current year, just over 27,000 individual employments were generated on film productions supported by Section 481 relief. This includes approximately 20,000 employments as extras on these productions. Unfortunately, this data does not show whether an individual spent a full year, a week or a day working on the production of a qualifying film. Similarly, an individual may have worked on a number of productions and would be counted in respect of each production. For this reason, it is not possible to estimate the number of full time equivalent employees from the Revenue information.
As the Deputy is aware, my Department carried out a review of the film relief scheme during 2012. As a result of this review, the scheme was overhauled in Finance Act 2013 to bring it up to international standards. The main beneficiaries of the revised relief will be the film producers rather than passive investors as is the case at present. There will also be benefits for the State by way of increased revenues.
In my recent Budget statement I gave notice of my intention to bring forward the proposed start date of the new scheme from 1 January 2016 to 2015.
