Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 September 2020
61. Deputy Niall Collins asked the Minister for Finance if he will consider including small providers of accommodation in the stay-and-spend scheme in view of the fact that many such providers are not registered for VAT. [27409/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe purpose of the Stay and Spend scheme is to incentivise taxpayers to support registered/accredited providers of accommodation and/or food during the off-season, thus providing support to a particularly vulnerable sector that will continue to be constrained by public health limitations. All food service providers and Fáilte Ireland registered or listed providers of accommodation are eligible to take part in the scheme.
It will provide a maximum of €125 in income tax credits to tax-payers who spend up to €625 in restaurants, pubs, hotels, B&Bs and so on, in the period from October to the end of next April. Where an individual or jointly assessed tax-payer has insufficient income tax liability to fully benefit from the measure, they may still avail of the relief against their USC contributions.
In addition to having a tax clearance certificate, participating businesses must also be registered for VAT. While I acknowledge that there are many smaller businesses in the hospitality sector which are not required to register for VAT, it remains open to those businesses to do so in order to participate in the Stay and Spend cheme. However, they should carefully consider the additional compliance requirements associated with VAT registration before doing so.
More generally, as I indicated recently, when we designed this scheme, and launched it, we were launching it in the anticipation then, that our Economy would be on the way to being fully open, and there would be full mobility across our country. We know that's not the case now, for a number of reasons. I will be monitoring the scheme, to see how it works and see if there's any changes that we need to make. I'm going to be unashamed in trying new things.
