Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 20 Nov 1996

Vol. 471 No. 7

Written Answers. - Mortgage Interest Relief.

Trevor Sargent

Ceist:

128 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Finance the number of individual taxpayers who availed of the mortgage interest relief tax free allowance in each of the past three years; the amount of income foregone by the State in each of these years through the operation of this tax free allowance scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21927/96]

Minister for Finance (Mr. Quinn)

I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that the relevant information available is the estimated full year cost to the Exchequer for each of the income tax years 1993-94, 1994-95, 1995-6 together with the corresponding claimants in each of those years.

	1993-94	1994-95	1995-6
	£m	£m	£m
Full Year Cost	190.7	141.1	136.5
Claimants	328.700	345,300	354,800

These figures are provisional and are likely to be revised.

The year-on-year reduction in the costs is attributed initially to reductions in interest rates and over the later years by the phased impact of standard rating which was introduced in the Finance Act, 1994, offset to some extent by an increase in loan amounts and the ongoing increase in numbers.