THE DEPARTMENT OF Finance has released its ‘White Paper’ ahead of the upcoming Budget, which confirms the Government will have a surplus of €25 billion for this year.

The ‘White Paper’ is published every year ahead of the budget and provides estimates of Ireland’s receipts and expenditure for the coming year. 

The figures presented for 2024 are projections based on current information and are subject to revision when end-year figures become available.

The Department also notes that all figures are on a “technical pre-Budget basis and do not include any new policy measures to be announced as part of the 2025 Estimates and Budgetary processes”.

As well as a forecasted surplus of €25 billion for this current year, the Department is also forecasting a surplus of close to €12 billion for 2025.

However, this year’s figure includes all of the €14 billion windfall fund from Apple’s unpaid tax.

The European Court of Justice recently ruled that Apple must pay €13 billion to Ireland in unpaid taxes, something the Irish government had argued against. 

While the 2024 figure includes all of the Apple tax for accounting purposes, only €8 billion of the Apple escrow fund will be injected into the exchequer this year, while the remaining €6 billion will be accrued next year.

And though the Apple tax makes up a great portion of the surplus, a record high of €30 billion in corporation taxes to be received by the State this year – €5.5 billion more than expected.

Yesterday, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council warned that it “would be dangerous” to “pump” corporate tax receipts into the economy.

The Council is the State’s budgetary watchdog and was established to offer an “honest and independent view of how the Government manages its budget”. 

It noted that a massive surplus was to be expected due to a spike in corporation tax due to the Apple tax ruling.

However, the Council cautioned that these “receipts would be once-off in nature” and that the surplus will be “significantly smaller in 2025”.

“A large deficit would be likely if not for these and other exceptional corporation tax receipts being collected from a handful of foreign multinationals,” said the Council.

“Pumping these receipts into a strong economy would be dangerous,” it added.

The Council also called for improved transparency in the White Paper itself.

“We’ve long argued that it should show gross rather than net spending,” said the Council, “which is hugely unhelpful.”

It said that these “general government figures would give a wider picture”.

Last week, Finance Minister Jack Chambers acknowledged that Ireland’s “fiscal position remains heavily exposed to volatile ‘windfall’ corporate tax revenues paid by just a small number of highly profitable firms”.