Questions to the Minister for Finance (Mr. Michael Noonan, TD)
To ask the Minister for Finance his views on determining the medical services that are exempt from value added tax; and if he will make a statement on the matter. – Jerry Buttimer
To ask the Minister for Finance his views on making craniosacral therapy exempt from value added tax; and if he will make a statement on the matter. – Jerry Buttimer
For WRITTEN ANSWERS on Tuesday, 10 March 2015.
REPLY
I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the supply of certain medical services generally qualifies for exemption from VAT. Provisions for the VAT exemption applicable to medical services are contained in Paragraphs 2(3) and 2 (7) of Schedule 1 to the Value – Added Tax Consolidation Act 2010. Details of the relevant provisions are as follows:
– Professional medical care services recognised as such by the Department of Health and Children (other than dental or optical services), but only if those services are not supplied in the course of carrying on a business that wholly or partly consists of selling goods.
– Other professional medical care services that, on 1 January 2010, were recognised by the Revenue Commissioners as exempt activities.
These provisions transpose Article 132 (1) (c) of the VAT Directive 2006/112/EC on which Irish VAT law is based and with which Irish VAT law must comply. Professional medical care services recognised by the Department of Health and Children, and which qualify for VAT exemption, are generally those medical care services supplied by health professionals who are enrolled, registered, regulated, or designated on the appropriate statutory register provided for under the relevant legislation in force in the State or equivalent legislation applicable in other countries. These include persons registered under the Medical Practitioners Act 2007, persons registered under the Nurses Act 1985 and dieticians, occupational therapists, orthoptists, physiotherapists, psychologists, radiographers and speech and language therapists designated under Section 4(1) of the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005. The exemption also applies to chiropodists, chiropractors and osteopaths since these medical care services were recognised by the Revenue Commissioners as exempt activities on 1 January 2010.
Other services, including craniosacral therapy, cannot benefit from the medical services exemption except in the very unusual circumstances where a doctor makes a composite supply for a single consideration of exempt medical services and craniosacral therapy and the exempt services are regarded as the principal supply. In these circumstances the entire supply is treated as exempt. I would refer the Deputy to the Revenue publication Medical Service on the Revenue website that provides additional information in relation to the VAT treatment of Medical Services.