Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 December 2015
173. Deputy Finian McGrath asked the Minister for Finance the additional revenue that would be generated from a reduction of the pension fund allowance for tax purposes on retirement from €2 million to €0.95 million; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44209/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraI assume that the Deputy's reference to a pension fund allowance is meant to refer to the Standard Fund Threshold or SFT. The SFT is the maximum allowable pension fund on retirement for tax purposes which was introduced in Budget and Finance Act 2006 to prevent over-funding of pensions through tax-relieved arrangements. The threshold was initially set at €5 million, which was subsequently reduced to €2.3 million in 2010 and further reduced in Budget 2014 and Finance (No 2) Act 2013 to €2 million with effect from 1 January 2014.
Information on the numbers and values of individual pension funds or on individual accrued benefits in pension schemes are not generally required to be supplied to either the Revenue Commissioners or to my Department by the administrators of pension schemes and personal pension arrangements. The estimate of the yield expected to arise from the changes to the SFT regime introduced in Budget 2014 and Finance (No 2) Act 2013 referred to above was arrived at following considerable internal work over a period by my Department involving, among other things, data gathering and consultation with private sector sources relating to the specific changes to be made. There is no readily available underlying data or methodology on which to base reliable estimates of the tax yield that would arise from further changes to the SFT of the scale envisaged in the question.
