Tony Gregory
Ceist:104 Mr. Gregory asked the Minister for Finance if a section 19 tax incentive is available for a development at St. Mary's Church, Mary Street, Dublin 1. [30120/00]
Written Answers. - Tax Code.
Section 482 of the 1997 Taxes Consolidation Act (formerly section 19, Finance Act 1982), provides a relief from income tax and corporation tax to the owner-occupier of an "approved building" in respect of certain expenditure for the repair, maintenance or restoration of an approved building. The building must first be approved by the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands to be a building which is intrinsically of significant scientific, historical, architectural or aesthetic interest.
Once this determination has been made by the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, then the Revenue Commissioners must determine that reasonable access is provided to the building for members of the public. The most important condition in this regard is that the premises must be open for at least 60 days per year of which at least 40 must be in the period May to September and that at least ten of these days must be at weekends.
I understand from the Revenue Commissioners that section 482 requires the owner-occupier of the approved building to give details to Bord Fáilte of the name and address of the buildings and its opening times or, where the approved building is a tourist accommodation facility, the times of the year during which it is so used. The information is given to Bord Fáilte on the understanding that they or another body concerned with the promotion of tourism may publish such information.
In order to improve the information available to the public, the Revenue Commissioners will shortly supply Bord Fáilte with a list of approved buildings and their opening times for use by the bord in its tourist publications. This list will, I understand, be placed on the Revenue and Bord Fáilte websites in the new year.
In regard to the particular case in question, it is an established practice that a Minister for Finance does not answer a parliamentary question about the tax affairs of an individual or a company, other then when the Deputy asking the question is seeking information on behalf of the taxpayer. In this instance, it is not clear that the Deputy is asking the question in this context. In these circumstances, therefore, I regret that I must follow the advice of the Revenue Commissioners that the information sought should not be divulged on the grounds of confidentiality.