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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 4 Jun 1930

Vol. 35 No. 4

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 6—Office of the Revenue Commissioners.

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £445,650 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1931, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig na gCoimisinéirí Ioncuim, maraon le Seirbhísí áirithe eile atá fé riara na hOifige sin.

That a sum not exceeding £445,650 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1931, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, including certain other Services administered by that Office.

The increase shown this year is due to the operation of the incremental scale. The total amount arising through incremental increases is about £19,000. That is reduced by decreases which followed retirements when younger men came in to succeed senior men.

On this Vote we propose to raise a subject to which I briefly referred in a speech on one of the Financial Resolutions— namely, the whole question of the methods adopted by the Revenue Commissioners to collect income tax, and particularly alleged arrears of income tax. I can see Deputy T.J. O'Connell immediately becoming disturbed at the mention of the hated income taxpayer. Well, just as members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party seem to believe that any illegality is justifiable and sanctioned, provided it be directed against the Republican element in the community, I gathered from Deputy O'Connell's speech on last Wednesday that he is of opinion that an income taxpayer is one against whom the State can do no wrong. That is not the policy of Fianna Fáil.

Nor is it our policy either.

Just as this Party stands for justice and fair dealing between this country and its neighbours, so too we believe that within the State justice should be extended to all classes of citizens alike, and that no man, be he rich or poor, should be subjected to undue aggression or unfair measures at the hands of those who are called upon to administer the law. When, therefore, continuous representations are made to us that the Revenue Department of the Government in its dealings with the income taxpayer is over-riding the law, we are bound to raise and ventilate these charges in the House, and, if they are sustainable, to press them home on the Minister.

In what I have to say I shall from time to time have to refer to the Revenue Commissioners, but in that connection I should like to make it clear that my remarks have no personal reference to them whatsoever. We on these benches realise, as I am sure the general body of taxpayers realise, that they are merely doing their duty and giving effect to the policy laid down for them by the Executive Council. In this matter it is the Executive Council, through the Minister for Finance, which is the real driving force. Whatever hardships have been inflicted, whatever wrongs have been done, it is the Executive Council which is responsible.

In introducing his Budget in 1928, referring to the proposed new measures of which the country so bitterly complains to-day, the Minister said:—

"For this coming year we propose to get a substantial part of the extra income required by a resort to expedients which will give us revenue for one year only. We intend to speed up the collection of abnormal arrears of income tax."

And the Minister has been as good as his word. It is true that he has not used the thumb screw and the rack, favourite devices in mediæval days for extracting revenue, but, short of these physical instruments, there is no procedure to which the Minister has not had recourse, in order to secure the extra sums which he cuphemistically describes as "abnormal arrears of income tax."

From inquiries which I have made, I am perfectly satisfied that large sums of money described as "abnormal arrears" have been in many cases nothing of the sort, have been simply blood money which harassed and broken men have paid to escape an even more unbearable victimisation. The Minister smiles. It is no laughing matter for the men who have been put out of business by the Minister's Department, no laughing matter for the men who have been ruined in health, mentally and physically, no laughing matter for the country and for the industries which have suffered because of the enormous and unjustifiable sums which the Minister has extracted from them. It would scarcely be correct, I suppose, to describe these payments as blackmail, but the methods which have been adopted to secure them are similar to the methods adopted by those who extort such unwilling tribute.

For the purpose of pursuing the policy which he enunciated in 1928 I believe the Minister set up within the Department of the Revenue Commissioners a special Inquiry and Investigation Branch. It is not certain what instructions the responsible heads of this department have received. I doubt, indeed, whether these instructions have been committed to writing, but it may be assumed that contained in them is a general formula for the extraction of blood from a stone. Naturally, such an arduous undertaking requires unusual methods, and it is not surprising, therefore, that in pursuing their peculiar activities the heads of this department do not hesitate to exceed altogether their powers under the law. A favourite device of those who are engaged in collecting these abnormal arrears of income tax is to summon taxpayers to interview them in connection with cases about which there has been a dispute. These summonses generally take the form of a letter more or less in the following terms:

A personal interview is necessary with you in connection with incorrect returns of your income made by you for a number of years. Unless you are prepared to facilitate us in securing correct details of your capital at January 1, 1914, and your profits for each year since, we shall have to institute penalty proceedings against you.

The first point to note in connection with this letter is the allegation, in some cases, at any rate, unfounded, that the recipient has made incorrect returns for a number of years. Now the position of this special department is a peculiar one. In the letter which I have just read it is clear that the body in the position of accusers or prosecutors has laid a charge of misstatement and possibly fraud against the individual to whom the letter is addressed. This individual is summoned to appear before them. There is no intimation in the summons that the individual who receives it is not bound to respond to it, nor that he may take legal advice in connection with it.

In 99 per cent. of the cases those who receive this summons present themselves for the interview under threat of the Special Investigation Department that they will have to institute penalty proceedings against them if they do not appear, and I am told that they are asked to give information to these men who are their accusers, and some of whom, as I will show shortly, will be their judges, which under the income tax law they are not bound to give. I am told that in some cases questions have been asked relating to transactions dating so far back as 30 years. Questions as to the taxpayer's capital when starting business were asked; information is required as to the amount of his annual drawings, as to any gifts or settlements made to children, as to investments at various periods. He is told that his accounts will have to be audited by an auditor whom the Department will suggest. Information as to his various bankers and an inspection of various pass-books are demanded, and certified bank returns in many cases are asked for. All these inquiries, I am informed, are illegal. Nevertheless they are persisted in, and as a result of them a good deal of data which the Commissioners would not otherwise secure is furnished to them and enables them to put undue pressure on the taxpayer.

I have mentioned that the Commissioners in their letter appear first of all in the role of accusers. During the interview they assume the role of investigators. We shall see later that, in due sequence, they assume the role of judges, so that the income taxpayer eventually appears before a tribunal upon which there sit, in one and the same person, not only the judge but the prosecutor and the detective. What sort of justice has he to expect from such a court?

I have said that many of the inquiries which are put at these interviews relate to information and to particulars which the Revenue Commissioners are not entitled under law to demand. The only information which a taxpayer may be called upon to furnish is that provided for in Section 139 of the Income Tax Act of 1918. This section reads:

If the General Commissioners have received notice of appeal against an assessment made by the Additional Commissioners, or see cause to allow the objection of the surveyor to any such assessment, they shall issue a precept to the appellant ordering him to deliver to them, within the time limited by the precept, a schedule containing such particulars, for their information, as they may demand under the authority of this Act respecting—

(a) the property of the appellant; or

(b) the trade, profession, employment or vocation carried on or exercised by him; or

(c) the amount of his profits or gains, distinguishing the particular amounts derived from each separate source; or

(d) any deductions made in arriving at his profits or gains,

which particulars the said general Commissioners are hereby empowered and required to demand at their discretion whenever the same shall appear to them necessary for the purposes mentioned in this Act.

It will be noted that the information to be furnished under this section is definitely limited both in form and in content. It is to be furnished in the form of a schedule, a mere list. There is nothing in the section empowering the Commissioners or any other person under the Act to ask for certified bank accounts, audited accounts or vouched accounts in any form, and therefore any which may be asked by the Revenue Commissioners or by their representatives, is something which they are not entitled to get, and which ought not to be given.

I have said that Section 139 is the only section under which the General Commissioners—there are no General Commissioners in this country, but there are in Great Britain—were entitled to issue this precept. The extraordinary thing, however, is that this is the one section which the Revenue Commissioners hesitate to invoke. I think that they very rarely issue a precept. They are very glib and very emphatic about the penal sections of the statutes, and these are always kept before the minds of taxpayers, but Section 139 of the Act of 1918 is one to which they very seldom have recourse. Why? Because this section has been very strictly interpreted by the Courts, and the powers of the Revenue Commissioners under it have been very strictly limited. But yet it is the law, and anything done by the Revenue Commissioners beyond it is outside the law, and should not be condoned or connived at either by the Minister, by this House, or by any Deputy, even by Deputy O'Connell. It may be that for the purposes of the Minister the powers given by the law are insufficient, but if so, his remedy is to amend the law, not to break it.

In the course of his speech on the Second Stage of the Finance Bill, the Minister animadverted upon my statement that the Revenue Commissioners were concealing from the taxpayer the fact that under Section 140 a person who has delivered a wrong statement as to income may rectify the same, and thereafter is not liable to any penalty proceeding by reason of his wrong statement. The Minister attempted to justify the action of the Commissioners in trading upon the general ignorance of the taxpayer in this regard by imputing that in general the delivery of a wrong statement is due to a fraud, and therefore the generality of the taxpayers who have for one reason or another made wrong statements are excluded from the benefits of this section. Arising out of this, it is interesting to note the general allegation of deliberate and malicious fraud which the Minister levels against the taxpayers of this country.

The Deputy is misrepresenting me. What I said was that the section did not apply to the case of fraud, and that if a man had deliberately entered a fraudulent statement in a return, he could not be held later on to have discovered that statement.

I would like to reply to the Minister that my general statement did not indicate that a person who was guilty of fraud was entitled to the benefit of the section. My general statement was not in any sense a declaration that a person guilty of deliberate fraud was entitled to the benefit of the section. I said the Revenue Commissioners concealed from the taxpayer the fact that under Section 140 if a man had made a wrongful return, then when he had discovered that wrongful return, either through inquiries made by the Revenue Commissioners or in any other way, provided he made a rectified return before proceedings for penalties had been taken, no penalties could be secured against him. I made that general statement. The Minister answered it, basing his whole answer upon the case of a man who had been guilty of wilful and deliberate fraud. He took a particular case, and applied it to the whole general body of taxpayers. If I misunderstood him, and if I am misinterpreting his attitude in that connection, I will withdraw, and will not pursue the question of fraud any further. I will accept the Minister's statement at once at its face value.

But again, even if there were fraud, even if the Revenue Commissioners had reason to suspect fraud, that does not establish the charge of fraud. Fraud is a question of intention, and before a charge of fraud can be brought home, the intention must be proven. The delivery of a wrong statement may have been occasioned by something other than a deliberate intention to defraud. Therefore, if a person is to be deprived of the benefit of Section 140—I would like to emphasise that I am advised that it is the general practice of the Revenue Commissioners to conceal from the taxpayers the benefits to which they are entitled under this Act—it can only be done where the fraud has been proved, and the mere allegation on the part of the Revenue Commissioners that the fraud has been committed is not sufficient to deprive the taxpayer of the benefits of the section. Unless the Commissioners are satisfied to go into Court and sustain their allegation of fraud, with all that a charge of fraud involves as to intention, the taxpayer is entitled to the benefit of the section. I say he never gets that benefit, and I say that wherever those benefits can be withheld from him because of his ignorance of the effects of the section, the taxpayer never secures them.

In every case in which the Commissioners do not take proceedings the question of fraud is, at the very most, one of doubt, and surely even the present Minister for Finance will sometimes give the taxpayer the benefit of the doubt. It will be noted that Section 139 of the Act confers certain powers on the General Commissioners in Ireland to secure information. It happens, however, that there were never any General Commissioners in Ireland, and therefore Section 190 of the Act provided that the powers of the General Commissioners, Special Commissioners and Additional Commissioners in England shall be exercised in Ireland by the Special Commissioners, and it is by virtue of this section that the Special Commissioners of Revenue may proceed by precept to secure the information to which I have referred in accordance with Section 139. It may be important to point out at this stage the difference between the General Commissioners of Income Tax in England and the Special Commissioners. The General Commissioners in England are altogether independent of the Executive. They are an unpaid magistracy drawn from the taxpaying community. On the other hand, the Special Commissioners are civil servants, are dependent upon the Executive, and are therefore the agents of the Executive. The Revenue Commissioners in England stand in a position similar to the Judiciary here. The Special Commissioners in this country are nothing of the sort. They are not independent judges, and therefore they are not fitted to hear appeals brought by the taxpayer against themselves in many cases.

The procedure of bringing appeals before the Special Commissioners in this country is as absurd and contrary to the principles of justice as would be the arraignment of a man on a criminal charge before the Attorney-General or a State Solicitor. Moreover, it is questionable whether these Special Commissioners have the power of inflicting penalties. To do that they would have to rely on Section 221 of the 1918 Act, but I do not think that that section confers the power upon them. I do not think that since the establishment of the Free State Section 190 is any longer applicable. Nevertheless, since the establishment of the Free State the Revenue Commissioners seem to have acted on the assumption that the Special Commismissioners have the jurisdiction to inflict penalties, with the consequence that proceedings for penalties have been prosecuted, so I am informed, before the Special Commissioners. Such proceedings are entirely criminal proceedings. In general, it is sought by them to inflict penalties as a punishment for fraud, though the issues are essentially issues which should be tried before the ordinary Courts. Certainly it is clearly and manifestly unjust that people should be prosecuted before the paid officials of the prosecuting party. What confidence could any taxpayer have in a tribunal such as the Special Commissioners when he is aware of the fact that these men have been promoted by the grace of the State and are dependent for their future promotion upon the zeal with which they carry through the policy of collecting the abnormal arrears of income tax, as laid down by the Minister for Finance in his Budget speech of 1928?

I say that the whole of these proceedings are in appalling conflict with all sound principles of justice and should not be for a moment countenanced or upheld. Moreover, the action of the Special Commissioners in hearing appeals and in purporting to exercise appellate jurisdiction is a violation of Article 64 of the Constitution. Quite clearly the hearing of appeals is a judicial function. Article 64 says:—

The judicial power of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) shall be exercised and justice administered in the public Courts established by the Oireachtas by judges appointed in manner hereinafter provided. These Courts shall comprise Courts of First Instance and a Court of Final Appeal to be called the Supreme Court. The Courts of First Instance shall include a High Court, invested with full original jurisdiction in and power to determine all matters and questions whether of law or fact, civil or criminal, and also Courts of local and limited jurisdiction with a right of appeal as determined by law.

I think it is quite clear that the Tribunal of the Special Commissioners is entirely excluded by the terms of this Article. The jurisdiction which that tribunal purports to exercise is not local even though it may be limited. Moreover, it proceeds to determine matters and questions of law and fact, civil and criminal, a function clearly imposed in the High Court by the Article of the Constitution to which I have referred. I have mentioned the word "criminal" because fraud is surely a criminal offence. I do not know whether the Minister proposes to advance, in justification for the present proceedings of the Special Commissioners, the excuse that Section 190 of the 1918 Act gives to them the power to hear appeals. If so, however, such argument is nullified by Article 73 of the Constitution, which provides that those British statutes may be adapted in the Irish Free State only to the extent to which they are not inconsistent with the Constitution. If Section 190 empowered the Special Commissioners to hear appeals it is clearly inconsistent with Article 64 of the Constitution and, therefore, is of no effect so far as Saorstát Eireann is concerned. It is obvious that the Special Commissioners have not felt too sure of their ground in this matter. My information is that in certain proceedings in which their power to hear appeals was questioned on the grounds that they were estopped by the Constitution from doing so, the Special Commissioners dropped the matter altogether. Furthermore, they have, I understand, refused to facilitate in any way, in some cases, taxpayers who seek to secure redress in the High Courts for the unwarranted proceedings of the Commissioners. The Revenue Commissioners, for instance, have refused to divulge their names.

In a case which was heard in Court the other day proceedings were taken by name against two persons whose names were given in the ordinary public directory as the Revenue Commissioners. When the case came into Court, lo! and behold! the counsel for the Revenue Commissioners asked that it be dismissed on the grounds that it was wrongly constituted, as there were not two Revenue Commissioners, but six. The two Commissioners whose names are given to the public had become six overnight. If these functionaries can increase and multiply with this amazing fecundity, the Free State will soon be as much overrun by Revenue Commissioners as Australia only a few years ago was by rabbits. My information further is that the counsel appearing for the Revenue Commissioners refused to divulge the name of these six mysterious beings who "work in devious ways their wonders to perform." Their names are too sacred, their persons are too august, their powers too absolute, their proceedings too arbitrary to permit their names even to be breathed in the Courts of the land.

Quite clearly the Revenue Commissioners—and I would like to repeat, that when I speak of the Revenue Commissioners in this connection, my reference is to the Minister for Finance and the Executive Council, whose instruments they are—have conceived an altogether erroneous view of their function in the collection of revenue. Their function is to collect the tax imposed by law, but to do so only by such means as are strictly in accordance with law. It is no part of their duty to seek to increase the revenue by an unfair manipulation of the statutory provisions, no part of their duty to deal unfairly between the State and the citizen, and above all, it is certainly not their function to trade upon the reluctance or inability of individual taxpayers to incur the risks of costly litigation with the State. To use such a leverage in order to extract moneys, which at the very best may be doubtfully due, to my mind, falls little short of blackmail. And yet, I regret to say that I am informed that it is one of the instruments which the Revenue Commissioners have employed most frequently during the past four or five years to collect these huge sums that the Minister for Finance has euphemistically referred to as "abnormal arrears of income tax."

I wish in conclusion to guard myself against any possible misrepresentation from the Chairman of the Labour Party, of which his speech last week was an example. I am not asking that any taxpayer who has defrauded the State should be allowed to go free of the penalty which he has incurred, but I do ask that before a man is so penalised he shall have the benefit at least of being fairly tried before an independent tribunal. Hitherto the luckless individual who has been so unfortunate as to be suspected even of having made a wrongful return has not had the benefit of that fair tribunal. I hope that henceforth that will be conceded to him and that the Special Commissioners will no longer exercise appellate jurisdiction, which hitherto they have claimed, in contravention of the Constitution, and that the Revenue Commissioners will understand that it is their duty to administer the law as it stands and not as they would wish it to be. If the law, as it now is, be ineffective for the Minister's purpose in collecting the last drops from the wine press, let him come to this House and seek to have the law amended, and if he can make a case which will be in accordance with the fundamental principles of justice and will not violate the rights of the citizen, I promise that he will have no opposition from these benches. But let him not license the Revenue Commissioners in their illegality as his colleague the Minister for Justice has licensed the police.

When in July last I intervened in the discussion of an Estimate similar to the one now before the House, I did so in the hope that something might be done to stop the regrettable and deplorable loss of life which was following in the direct wake of the exercise of present-day income tax methods. I gave the House two notable examples of the largest employers of labour in my constituency, both of whom I had followed to their last resting-place as the direct result of what is now known as income tax treatment. One at least of these cases will be personally known to the Minister—I think he knows of both of them. I then spoke of a third case of another large employer against whom no man had a word to say—he was a man whom nobody would ever accuse of fraud. He was at that time in danger of being subjected to a dose of income tax treatment. I feared for his health, and I ventured to appeal to the Minister for Finance for some consideration. I do not want to make an exaggerated or false case in any way, and I am bound to say that the appeal to the Minister was treated not merely with the courtesy which he always extends to such appeals, but, I have some reason to know, with the assistance which he is always willing to give. I appealed to the income tax officials. I said as clearly as I am saying it here: "Spare that man's life." I was turned down, and was told I was talking nonsense. I was talking no nonsense. On the anniversary of the death of the second victim to whom I have referred, the third victim died. I do not know that I was ever present at a more harrowing scene than when I paid a visit of condolence not long ago to that man's widow and orphans following on his burial. I got from them a picture of the last hours spent by that man in this world. In these last hours when the departing soul should be left free to commune with its Maker, around that deathbed there floated the income tax fiends following that man into eternity. When I left that house I said to myself I would not care to be a Commissioner of Inland Revenue.

Let nobody think for a moment that I am in the slightest degree exaggerating the facts. I am willing to put the facts before any tribunal or any fair official, and they will be found to be exactly as I have stated. Do you think that my interference in the debate which took place in July last caused any qualms to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or the officials? No. Within a few days they were hot on my trail —they were making inquiries from my bankers, trying to ascertain the nature and ownership of cheques which had passed through my firm's account. What object could they have save to try and bolster up a charge against me? I care nothing for them. When charges such as these are made, and when people actually think they can bluff a man like me, it shows the height of arrogance to which the Commissioners have raised themselves.

Some time later I asked a question in this House relating to the imprisonment of two workingmen in County Cork for non-payment of income tax. I got an answer from the Minister for Finance, and I tried to raise the question on the adjournment, but there were some Labour Deputies and some Deputies of the group with which I am associated who evidently came to the conclusion that the imprisonment of two mere workingmen was not a matter which should be raised on the adjournment, when there was down for discussion such an important question as the delivery of Belfast mud to the township of Rathmines, and accordingly, I did not get an opportunity of raising the question on the adjournment. What were the facts of that case? They were appalling. Let me not misconstrue them. I asked the Minister for Finance: "How many persons have been imprisoned in Cork Male Prison since 1st October, 1929, for non-payment of arrears of income tax?" and the answer I got was "two." I also asked: "How many of those imprisoned are working tradesmen and labourers?" and the answer I got was "one." I asked: "How many of the tradesmen and labourers imprisoned were, at the date of their imprisonment, unemployed?" and the answer was "one." That is, that the only two people that they could find to throw into prison in Cork were a working artisan who had a small weekly wage, and whom everybody knew was not in any way legally liable for income tax, and a man who was unemployed at the time, and had been unemployed for one and a-half years. I also asked: "What provision, if any, has been made for those dependants of the imprisoned who have, in consequence, become destitute?" and the answer I got was: "In cases in which proceedings in the District Courts for the recovery of tax are resorted to, the defaulters usually refuse or neglect to give information at the proper time, both as to their income and as to their family circumstances." When the Minister for Finance gave that information to the House. I have no doubt that he believed that he was stating what was true. But, if he inquires into the facts, he will convince himself that the officials who gave that information were telling him what they know to be untrue and without foundation. In one case a working tailor was living about 100 yards from the local income tax collector, who knew about his circumstances, and who, I take it, in the discharge of his duty, was asked to report on these circumstances. They knew the man was not liable for income tax. They knew that they were only carrying on a game of bluff. They knew they were sending him to jail not for any money legally due, but to put the fear of God into other income taxpayers.

Take the second case, the circumstances of which they say they do not know. I know something of income tax methods, and in that case I took the precaution of seeing that the Commissioners would be convicted by a written document if they dared to say, as they have said, that they did not know the facts. Before the case was heard at the District Court there was sent on behalf of the second man a statement to the Commissioners pointing out to them that he had been sued by civil bill, that the case had not yet been heard, that the man was married in July, 1925, and that he had no employment since June, 1926. In June, 1925, this workingman, who would earn £3 or £4 per week, had been out of employment for three years all but one month, but when he was in employment in 1925 he paid sums amounting to £26 1s. 6d. in respect of arrears of income tax. He was not an income taxpayer who was trying to commit any fraud; he was a man whom they had full notice was out of employment. To that letter came a reply from the autocrats of Dublin Castle: "We cannot now interfere"—the set answer: the law must take its course.

There was no mercy or shame when with full knowledge of the facts, that man was sent to jail. Why was he sent to jail? As a warning to people who owed arrears of income tax and who could pay them. Secondly, this is not an isolated case. Because they knew that the man had a brother-in-law, and as the collector stated at the time he was satisfied that the brother-in-law would pay in order to get rid of the shame of having a brother-in-law in jail, they got the money from the brother-in-law. That money was got as blackmail, and that money that was paid as blackmail and nothing else is still in the possession of the Inland Revenue authorities.

Deputy MacEntee has referred to the inquisition that has been set up in Dublin Castle. I have protested against men being brought hundreds of miles up to Dublin Castle at their own expense, there to be examined as to alleged discrepancies in their accounts, the particulars of which are never given to them. They are simply invited up for a conversation. What is the answer of the Commissioners to that? I put it down in the form of a question. They said: "Ah, please, say nothing about it; you do not know the happy time that is in store for people who respond to this invitation," because there is a case on record in which a man came out apparently alive minus something like £1,500. They say: "We generously let him out minus £1,500. We could have piled up penalties for him to about £6,000. Should not he be a thankful man?"

Before I pass from the practice of sending unemployed and impecunious workingmen to jail, I want to make the case that, despite what the Minister for Finance said at a later period to the House, this game of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue is carried on down to this date. At the present moment there is in the City of Cork a workingman who was better off prior to 1922, and had then run up a bill to something like £200. At present he is in receipt of £2 10s. per week, £1 5s. of which he has to pay for his lodging and board. Out of the remaining £1 5s. he has to clothe himself. It is all he has got. A solicitor in Cork tried to keep the man out of jail and made an offer on behalf of his relatives rather than stand the shame of seeing the man go to jail for £25. What was the answer? There is no use pretending that these methods have changed when they have not. The answer was that they would take no such sum as £25. The man has 5s. a week for himself after he has paid for his food and maintenance. Of course he could only pay by getting the money from his relatives through the threat of the exposure of having their relative in jail. As the law stands they can put that man in jail, and I have no doubt they will.

There was an offer made on his behalf to pay 5s. a week. Considering that the man has barely 5s. a week after he has paid for his food and clothing he could not pay more. They refused that offer also, and that man is going to jail. Those are some of the present income tax methods. I prefer to give concrete instances which I can be challenged about if I am wrong and which I am prepared to prove. I respectfully submit to this House, speaking as mildly as I can—and I have always spoken moderately—there never was a more inhuman and barbarous system than the system of sending workingmen to jail purely for the purpose of frightening some taxpayers and blackmailing them. The instances of blackmail that I have given you are not at all isolated. I have heard Deputies in this House complain that they were told in Dublin Castle when they went to complain of a poor woman out of work being asked for a sum for income tax which she could not pay: "Ah, has she no relatives that she could get to pay for her?" In other words, is there no relative whom they cannot blackmail into paying? I wish the Minister would consider for a moment the loss that is caused to this country by these methods. We were all very glad to observe that the National Loan was a very distinct success, but does the Minister ever think of how much greater a success it would be were it not for this almighty threat of income tax methods which are prevailing almost in every house in this country? I tell him, speaking for one district— where, I am sorry to say, the contributions were very small—that the reason they were small was because the inhabitants had the fear of the income tax official to such an extent that they would not subscribe to the National Loan, fearful of the raids that the income tax authorities would make on them; in fact, that they would have to explain not merely where every penny of it came from but what they had for breakfast and dinner every day since the 1st January, 1914.

I asked another question, and I only mention it now to illustrate what I have said already, that the Minister cannot accept the statements which he gets from the officials of the Inland Revenue as being true. I am stating nothing that I cannot prove by means of a written document. It has reference to a sitting of the Special Commissioners which took place in Skibbereen some time last year. I asked him if he was aware that a number of taxpayers in West Cork who had appealed against their assessments of income tax received notice from the inspector of taxes that their appeals would be heard in Skibbereen on 7th November, 1929, but when they arrived they found they were not heard. I asked what would be done to make compensation to these men or, at all events, to apologise to them for what had occurred. I was told that it had occurred in one case. The official who made that return told a deliberate lie. He knew that I knew of one case, and he believed that I knew of one case only, but I did know of at least one other case in which a man who had been brought a very long distance and to whom the official kindly gave the go-by when he was making a false case for the Minister to present to this House. In that case the man, after coming a long distance at great personal inconvenience to attend on a summons on a certain date, was told by the inspector in my own presence: "Go away out of that, you are not wanted here to-day." One would think it would do no harm to the autocrats of Dublin Castle if they instructed their officials down the country to treat the taxpayers with something like common courtesy and common civility.

I will give one other instance of what they do and which, I am sorry to say, is a daily occurrence. I have been attending the sittings of the Special Commissioners' courts for close on 40 years. In the old days I never saw a priest or other clergyman there. Nowadays if you attend a sitting of the Special Commissioners it is not an infrequent sight to see a queue of priests going in whose explanations would not be accepted by the inspector of taxes. Why are they brought there? They are brought there, in pursuance of the policy of bluff, to demonstrate to the public that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue are no respecters of persons. While they tell you on the one hand that they do not care a damn about the Minister for Finance they will tell you on the other hand that they do not care a damn about the priests. As a non-Catholic, I dislike drawing attention to this, but whatever was said about the old officials they were not priest hunters. These clergymen receive money by way of offerings and part with it as charity, a charity which in many instances has come personally before my notice and which would bring a blush of jealousy to a Carnegie. I would suggest that their explanations might be reasonably taken and that they should not be put to the expense, inconvenience and unpleasantness of being dragged into a Special Commissioners' court. The Revenue Commissioners would get the same in one instance as in the other. I suggest to the Minister for Finance that he would be well advised and that it would be in the best interests of the Revenue Commissioners if he announced to them that priest-hunting must cease.

I move the adjournment of the debate.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday.

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