Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 February 2017
120. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd asked the Minister for Finance the status of the living over the shops scheme in respect of County Louth; if there are plans to implement the scheme in Drogheda or Dundalk; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9283/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraI am advised by Revenue that the "Living over the Shop" scheme was one of a suite of capital allowances schemes which have now terminated and, in relation to this particular scheme, relief is not available for any capital expenditure incurred after 31 July 2008. The scheme only applied in the five cities of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick and therefore did not have application in Co Louth.
The "Living over the Shop" scheme was one of several tax incentives that were not examined by the independent 2009 Commission on Taxation. However, as noted in Section 16 of its report, this was because the decision had already been taken to discontinue this relief, and that the commission concurred with that decision.
The Deputy will also note that my Department has published guidelines for tax expenditure evaluation which need to be considered in relation to any new proposals for tax expenditures and the re-introduction of a capital allowance scheme would be subject to this evaluation process. Some of the key evaluation questions that need to be addressed as part of such evaluations are: (i) What objective does the tax expenditure aim to achieve? (ii) What market failure is being addressed? (iii) Is a tax expenditure the best approach to address the market failure? (iv) What economic effect is the tax expenditure likely to have? (v) How much is it expected to cost?
Having regard to the above questions, and in light of the views of the Commission on Taxation, I have no plans for the re-introduction of these capital allowance schemes.
