AQW 4671/17-22

Ms Kellie Armstrong
Alliance Party
Strangford

Tabled Date: 10/06/2020
Answered On Date: 23/07/2020
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister for Communities what discussions she has had with HMRC to enable legislation to be amended to remove the requirement for the Housing Executive (NIHE) to have to pay corporation tax, given the liability will reduce the ability of the NIHE to deliver planned maintenance and housing support.

Answer:

Corporation Tax legislation is an Excepted Matter and any changes to tax legislation would need to be made at Westminster, supported by HMRC/ Treasury.

There has been ongoing engagement for several years. Both the Head of the Civil Service and consecutive Permanent Secretaries in the Department of Finance have raised the matter.

A 16 July, 2020 letter from the DoF Permanent Secretary, requesting a discussion on this issue, is with the Permanent Secretary for Treasury. My Department also wrote to HMRC on July 3, 2020 citing the similarity between the Housing Executive case for exemption from Corporation Tax and that successfully made by the Education Authority in 2017.