No finance minister has introduced as many budgets in good times as the current Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy. Since 1950, only Dr James Ryan introduced more budgets. On December 3rd, we will see Mr McCreevy's seventh successive budget.

Mr McCreevy said from the beginning that he should not be judged on one budget alone, but on the pattern of reforms introduced over time. An overarching theme has been to match dramatic cuts in tax rates with speedier and more efficient collection. Inevitably, there have been winners and losers.

Mr McCreevy introduced his first budget in December 1997. Even then we could see many of the characteristics of his subsequent five budgets. These involved cuts in tax rates, frequent changes in policy on taxation of property, many changes in tax payment and filing dates, radical reform in some areas of taxation and increased complexity and administrative costs for taxpayers.

As he has said on numerous occasions in the past, this Minister listens to his advisers, weighs up what he hears and then makes up his own mind.

In his first budget, capital gains tax (CGT) rate was reduced from 40 per cent to 20 per cent. In his 1999 budget, Mr McCreevy reduced the capital acquisition tax rate similarly from a top rate of 40 per cent to 20 per cent.

The offset of property capital allowances against non-rental income was capped at £25,000 (€31,600) per annum per individual; interest relief on borrowings to acquire rental properties was ended; and a 9 per cent stamp duty rate was introduced for residential property.

In 2002, Mr McCreevy extended the 9 per cent rate to commercial property. The restriction on interest relief was reversed in the 2001 budget.

The corporation tax rate was reduced from 36 per cent to 32 per cent. This process continued through successive budgets until the rate reached 12.5 per cent on trading income.

Company pay and file dates were amended. They were amended again in December 2001 and yet again in December 2002. The overall result has been to bring forward the due dates for tax substantially and to render payment dates complex.

The limit on the amount of capital a company could raise under the business expansion scheme was reduced from £1 million to £250,000. However, in December 2001 Mr McCreevy did a U-turn and increased this limit to €750,000.

There was a one-year reduction in VAT rates from 21 per cent to 20 per cent, ostensibly to encourage e-commerce activity, but this was revised when budgetary pressures began to emerge.

Most people have benefited from Mr McCreevy's budgets in one form or another as a result of the following.

• Replacement of the 10 per cent manufacturing relief regime with an across-the-board 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate for trading income, which provides a significant long-term benefit for the economy.

• Individualisation greatly reduced the burden of tax on young unmarried workers.

• Those disposing of capital assets benefited from the reduction in CGT rate. Business has paid for this with the abolition of roll-over relief and the phasing out of indexation relief in 2002.

• Reduced capital acquisitions tax rate (CAT) and the introduction of a relief for the family home reduced the burden of CAT, especially on the PAYE sector.

• Tax reforms in the area of pensions, of relief for donations to charities, and the introduction of gross roll-up funds and life policies were very important to specific segments of the economy.

• All taxpayers benefited from the reduction in the top rate of income tax from 48 per cent in 1996/97 to 42 per cent in 2003, and of the standard rate from 27 per cent to 20 per cent in the same period.

However, there have also been some specific losers:

• Property buyers, including those buying up-market residences, have suffered from the increase in the top stamp duty rate from 6 per cent to 9 per cent, and the erosion of mortgage interest relief.

• Employers have suffered from the lifting of the cap on the amount of salary on which they contribute PRSI.

• All companies have suffered as a result of the bringing forward of the dates on which they have to make corporation tax payments.

• Residential property investors lost out due to being denied interest relief for several years.

• Top self-employed earners lost out due to the capping of tax-deductible pension contributions.

• Higher-paid workers lost out due to the introduction of tax credits. Most individual tax reliefs now have the same value to a person paying tax at the standard rate of tax, as they do to a person paying at the higher rate of tax.

• Businesses lost out with the introduction of dividend withholding tax, a tax with administrative costs.

• Investors lost out with capital allowance rates on hotels being reduced from 15 per cent to 4 per cent.

• Banks and shareholders in banks lost out with the introduction of the bank levy.

• Employers, and some employees, will lose out due to the extension of PAYE and PRSI to benefits-in-kind on January 1st, 2004.

On December 3rd we will find out who will win and lose from this year's Budget. Perhaps with more stringent spending constraints and less room to manoeuvre we might expect more losers than winners this year.

Hopefully Mr McCreevy's promise to have a strategic Budget will yield some positive developments in areas such as reductions in stamp duty, incentives for research and development and intellectual property businesses, centralised leasing operations and holding company regimes.

Progressive moves in these areas will help the Irish economy to be a winner in the long term.

• Brian Daly is a tax partner with KPMG