Vol. 416 No. 6
18 Mr. Noonan (Limerick East) asked the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to the fact that persons in the motor trade have suffered serious losses on vehicles in stock arising from the reductions in excise duty on motor vehicles announced in the budget, and if he will introduce a scheme in the Finance Bill to allow such persons to reclaim such losses by way of an appropriate excise rebate.
I am glad to inform the Deputy that, because of the particular difficulties facing the motor trade at present which I recognised in a reduction in the excise on cars and abolition of that on certain commercial vehicles, I have authorised the Revenue Commissioners to implement a scheme of relief from excise duty in respect of motor vehicles delivered at the existing rates of duty on or before 29 January 1992 but not sold until after that date. The scheme is as follows:
A. For cars:
(i) To qualify a car must have been removed from warehouse in the period 1 December 1991 to 29 January 1992.
(ii) Relief for qualifying cars will be restricted to 70 per cent of the full reduction in duty; (i.e. 1.57 percentage points).
B. For goods vehicles:
(i) To qualify a goods vehicle must have been removed from warehouse in the period 1 November 1991 to 29 January 1992.
(ii) Full relief will be made for those qualifying vehicles which exceed three tonnes weight (unladen). For other qualifying goods vehicles, it will be restricted to 70 per cent of the reduction in duty (i.e. 4.55 percentage points).
All claims for relief must conform with specifications laid down by the Revenue Commissioners. These will include the supply of information on the date of sale of the vehicle and any other information which they deem to be necessary.
No claims will be accepted after 27 March 1992, and I should stress that no relief will be granted to any party making fraudulent claims.
Finally, as a result of my action, I expect the motor trade to pass on to final consumers the full benefits resulting from the duty reduction.
(Limerick East): I thank the Minister for his prompt reply to my representations. I am sure he will thank me for giving him the opportunity to make this announcement in the House. From the text of his reply, it seems that the concession is being made to motor traders adversely affected by the reduction in excise duty on motor vehicles. May I ask the Minister if it also applies to the budgetary announcement of the removal of the 6.5 per cent excise duty on articulated trucks?
First, I should say to the Deputy that I received his detailed representations and, as he may know, I held discussions with SIMI for a number of days last week. It has also been my practice as Minister to make announcements in the House and not outside. I acknowledge what the Deputy said. No difficulty arose in the case of the larger trucks because 100 per cent relief is made. They were happy with that. As I have to come to realise during the past few weeks, every trader is not a member of SIMI and I have tried to take into account the representations made by others. In this regard, one could put the date back but in relation to cars the date of 1 December is fair. Given that trucks have hoods I moved the date back by a further month. That is a reasonable concession.
