Irish taxman sees corporate tax bonanza this year and next

DUBLIN, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Improved Irish exports should boost corporate tax receipts to around 2 billion euros above target this year and, barring changed trading conditions, 2016 should see a similar surplus, the country's tax collectors said on Wednesday.

Driven by corporate receipts, Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) has collected nearly 8 percent more tax than expected this year, helping cut the government's budget deficit but also prompting warnings against spending windfalls that could quickly disappear.

"Corporation tax receipts for 2015 are currently approximately 2 billion euros ahead of target and the end of year position is expected to be relatively unchanged," Niall Cody, chairman of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, told Finance Minister Michael Noonan in a letter dated Nov. 20 and published on Wednesday.

He cited improved trading conditions for exports across a number of companies as a major factor, and next year's pattern could be the same.

"On the assumption that there are no further currency fluctuations or decline in the profitability of the larger corporate groups ...we expect that much of this surplus will reoccur next year," Cody said.

The government had expected to take in 2.7 billion euros in corporate tax in the first ten months of the year but instead received 4.7 billion.

A 2 billion euro full-year surplus would return corporate tax receipts - 80 percent of which are generated from Ireland's large cluster of foreign companies - to the peak of 6.7 billion collected in 2006, before Ireland's financial crisis.

A repeat in 2016 would make that the best year ever.

Noonan had been advised the surge was sustainable but he has said he would be "very prudent" in forecasting. (Reporting by Padraic Halpin; editing by John Stonestreet)