Vol. 536 No. 4
121 Ms Shortall asked the Minister for Finance the reasons for the continuation of the tax on credit and ATM cards; the return to the Exchequer in the past tax year from this source; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14441/01]
There is an annual stamp duty charge of £5 per automatic teller machine card. There are exemptions from this charge where a card has not been used during the accounting period and for any card issued in respect of a deposit account where the average daily balance did not exceed £10.
This charge to stamp duty is levied on financial institutions which offer these cash card accounts. Section 123(9) of the Stamp Duties Consolidation Act, 1999, entitles the promoters of these cash cards to charge the account holders the amount of stamp duty and the financial institutions usually do pass on this stamp duty charge to their customers.
The yield from this source for the past four years was £33 million. I have no plans to remove this charge.
