When I was comparing the treatment yesterday or the attitude of minds adopted towards different kinds of persons I suggested that they were all regarded as outlaws. Deputy O'Connell apparently misunderstood me and thought I referred to him as saying something about George Gilmore. I wish to start off by removing any misapprehension that may be in his mind. I am sorry he is not here, but I told him I would put it on record that I did not associate the attitude of mind towards George Gilmore with him. The attitude somehow or another is that the law is to be applied towards some people in one way and towards others in another way. It is to be strained against the persons who have to pay income tax, and in that matter Deputy O'Connell seems to be sympathetic and to aid and abet the severe interpretation of the law, especially against persons, who are the richer persons, who pay income tax. And he seemed to take special pleasure, considering the troubles of those who have been forced to pay large sums of income tax. He said that where the smaller people with salaries have been forced to pay income tax he has not much pity upon the richer people who had also to pay income tax. I suggest that the law must be the same for all. If Deputy O'Connell wishes to advocate a capital levy that is a very different thing. It should be done, however, as a direct thing and not in the dishonest way of capturing as much as they can by the inquisitorial methods of the income tax collectors.
I hope Deputy O'Connell will be in before I finish because there were one or two other criticisms which I would prefer to make if he were here. The laws of income tax are very complicated; the forms are very complicated. Persons getting these forms and being called to pay income tax are in great trouble because of their ignorance of the law, and necessarily so. Some of the collectors trade upon their ignorance. They ask people for more than they are entitled to ask for. They take every advantage of lapse of time for enforcing the clauses with reference to the time limit very strictly and they ask questions which they are not entitled to ask. There is no legal remedy for that.
Deputy O'Connell suggested that if the income tax collectors exceeded their legal powers there is a remedy against them. There is no remedy against an income tax inspector who asks a man where he got his grama-phone and a number of other similar questions, which the man will probably answer because he does not know that the official is not entitled to ask such questions. I heard of a curious instance very recently where a solicitor applied for a certificate showing that all taxes had been paid on certain property. By law the Revenue Commissioners are bound to supply that certificate when it is applied for on the sale or purchase of a piece of property. The application was made, there was a delay, and there was a conversation in which an official had the audacity to say that he did not believe that the property was being sold at all, and he wanted to have it proved. One can imagine the feelings of a solicitor, whose mind is full of the details of a particular transaction, when a red herring like that is dragged across the trail at the moment he is carrying through a sale. Business would become impossible if at a particular stage an official could raise difficulties like that. If the law states that such a certificate shall be given it should be given automatically when a solicitor applies for it. A solicitor will not, for the sake of his health, ask for a certificate in respect of property about which there is no business transaction. It is that inquisitorial attitude that is most resented, and it has a bad effect, because the drift of public opinion is unsympathetic with the collection of income tax. It regards abuses as things that one can connive at, and that is largely due to the fact that it is felt that the collection is not being carried out in as fair-minded a manner as it should be.
There is no doubt about it that the absence of such an institution as special commissioners makes a very great difference, and I hope that, as an outcome of this criticism, in order to place the Revenue Commissioners in a more favourable light, in order to put them right with the community generally, the Minister will consider the introduction of legislation which will provide some impartial person between the Revenue Commissioners and the general public, or some body that would be a substitute for the Special Commissioners.
The Revenue Commissioners are entitled to collect income tax for a period of six years; income tax due before that period is not recoverable according to the statutes. Originally it was three years, but it has been made six years in this country. The answer given by the Revenue Commissioners in these cases is: "Oh, but the rest of it is in the nature of penalties." It may be in the nature of penalties, but such penalties should be imposed by a judicial act and not merely as an administrative act. They exercise a judicial power in these cases that is an excess of their powers under the Constitution. That also will have to be cleared up by legislation, and the sooner it is done the better, because otherwise it may lead to lengthy and expensive litigation, which is not desirable.
It was noticeable that when Deputy O'Connell was commenting upon the collection of income tax and was praising the Inland Revenue Commissioners he ignored altogether the case of an unemployed worker who was put into prison for not paying income tax which he could not pay. It is an extraordinary thing that nothing should have been said by the leader of the Labour Party in reference to the position of workers of that kind. That was not altogether an incidental or an isolated case; there have been other cases, some of which are even on record in the Law Reports, of workers who were punished in a like manner. Perhaps Deputy O'Connell expects that by being a good boy towards the Revenue Commissioners in this matter for his own particular craft— the teachers—he will get special terms, that some kindlier interpretation of the law will be meted out in their case in future. At the same time, I do not think it is fair for a person in the position of leader of the Labour Party to sacrifice the workers or the country generally in the interests of his own craft. Possibly his attitude of almost uncritical support of the Revenue Commissioners will lead to their being even more severe with the teachers than they have been.
I am quite sure that the majority of those in the Department of the Revenue Commissioners want to do the best they can by the country, and that part of their defects in the carrying out of the law is due to the law itself, but there is also a spirit of bureaucracy there which in the end militates against the collection of the tax rather than assisting in its collection by creating a public opinion insisting that everybody ought to pay the tax.