Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 July 2022
315. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance the tax expenditures and reliefs currently in place which are and are not factored into the base for the purposes of Budget 2023, itemised by name. [37242/22]
View answerI understand that an extensive list of tax expenditure measures with end-2022 sunset clauses in legislation was made available to the Committee on Budgetary Oversight in recent weeks. I am advised that the majority are costed at less than €15 million. Of the larger tax expenditures, measures such as the Help To Buy scheme and the reduced rate of USC for medical card holders are set to expire at end-2022. Whether or not to extend these schemes will be decided during the budgetary process.
The Budget Day costing of measures announced is published as part of the Budget documentation in the Tax Policy Changes booklet. At Budget 2022, the cost of the Help to Buy scheme in Budget package terms was estimated at €83 million. The full cost of the measure was estimated to be in the region of €175 million, of which €92 million was in the tax base.
In addition, at Budget 2022 the reduced rate of USC for medical card holders was costed at €62 million for 2022. However this was cost-neutral in Budget package terms as this measure was considered to be accounted for in the tax base.
The Budget package cost of extending measures with sunset clauses will be set out in the Budget Day documentation. If these measures were to be extended into 2023 these estimates would be subject to revision based on the latest available data: for example, it is currently estimated that the reduced rate of USC for medical card holders would cost in the region of €40 million in 2023. As the Deputy will appreciate, it would not be appropriate for me to speculate on policy decisions in advance of Budget Day.
