The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert MP, has re­vealed that the de­lay in VAT re­funds to SME com­pa­nies is as a re­sult of a cash flow is­sue, but has in­di­cat­ed monies will be paid by the end of Jan­u­ary.

The min­is­ter was re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised by the Dai­ly Ex­press in its ed­i­to­r­i­al “Drown­ing in VAT bu­reau­cra­cy”, in which it high­light­ed “the tar­di­ness in re­pay­ing VAT to com­pa­nies”.

“Cash flow con­straints have re­sult­ed in a 1-month de­lay in com­plet­ing this ex­er­cise, not bu­reau­cra­cy,” the fi­nance min­is­ter ex­plained in a re­lease.

Min­is­ter Im­bert not­ed:

“As a re­sult of oil and gas pro­duc­tion be­ing be­low es­ti­mat­ed lev­els, cou­pled with de­pressed oil and gas prices in the lat­ter half of cal­en­dar year 2024, the rev­enue col­lect­ed by the Gov­ern­ment in the last 3 months of cal­en­dar 2024 was low­er than ex­pect­ed. As a re­sult, the gov­ern­ment had to pri­or­i­tize on its ex­pen­di­ture, ad­dress ur­gent bills first and de­lay VAT re­funds.”

“How­ev­er, oil and gas prices re­cov­ered in No­vem­ber and De­cem­ber of 2024, and rev­enue col­lec­tion stem­ming from the Tax Amnesty has been on the uptick,” he con­firmed.

Ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter Im­bert, “there is now suf­fi­cient cash flow to ful­fil the com­mit­ment made with re­spect to VAT re­funds to SMEs.”

“The Min­istry in­tends to make good on its com­mit­ment and fol­low through on these SME VAT re­funds by the end of Jan­u­ary 2025,” he said.