I move that the Bill be read a Second Time. This Bill is to give effect to the four Finance Resolutions which have already been discussed on Committee and on Report Stage, and, in addition, to give the Revenue Commissioners power to require certificates in respect of imported goods as to the country of origin. This has been rendered necessary by the general tendency now to conduct international trade on the basis of agreements entered into by States. It also contains another provision enabling the Revenue Commissioners to pay bounties on exports in respect of goods manufactured from home-produced articles. For instance, in the case of sugar confectionery, where the confectionery would be manufactured from home manufactured sugar, upon which an Excise duty has been paid, the only drawback, as the law stands at present, which would be allowed on export would be the amount of the Excise duty, which is, of course, something like 16/4 below the Customs duty, but, obviously, the cost of the raw material to the manufacturer would be considerably more, as compared with what his foreign competitor would have to pay, than would be represented by the Excise duty. Accordingly, to place him on the same basis as his competitor, it is essential that he should be allowed, in addition to the drawback in Excise duty, the difference between the Customs duty and the Excise duty as an export bounty, and the Bill is designed to give effect to that.
Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1935—Second Stage.
Could the Minister say why this Excise duty is not allowed?
It is allowed as drawback.
No.
It is, normally, but this is to allow, in addition, a bounty of the difference between the Excise duty and the Customs duty.
Is Excise duty allowed in addition as drawback?
So that he is in the same position as he would have been in if he purchased raw material abroad, paid Customs duty on it and then exported the manufactured article. In that case, he would get back the full amount of the Customs duty.
Does the Bill not go further? The Minister has not told us what are its implications with regard to stamp duty.
Yes, I have pointed out that the Bill is to give effect to four Resolutions already debated.
We object to this Bill. It proposes in one of its sections— Section 6, I think, dealing with the determination of certain exemptions from stamp duty—to take away from local authorities certain exemptions which they enjoyed since the Local Government Act of 1898 came into force. Since that time, local authorities were free from stamp duty as far as poor rate and rate receipts were concerned. They were also exempt from stamp duty on contracts, leases, conveyances and similar documents. Now the Minister proposes to wipe all that out. One wonders why the Minister selects the present moment to do that. Is it because he thinks local authorities are in such a fat and prosperous condition that they can afford to pay more money into the Exchequer than is already being paid? We have already heaped upon us various types of expenditure, and we have lately been made tax-gatherers for Government revenue in another way. If the people do not pay the annuities the grants are withheld, and we have to raise the rate, and we must, in that way, become the collectors of revenue for the Government. Now we must pay further revenue to the Government under this.
The Minister has never explained to the House why he feels this ought to be done. Is it that the Government really want to get every penny they can and want to get this money into the revenue by hook or by crook? It was stated, I think, when this matter was first mooted by the Dublin Corporation, that the Minister's real anxiety was to get after certain corporations, and that in order to get after those corporations everybody else should suffer. I do not know to what extent that is true, but I think the present time is the worst possible time at which the Minister for Finance or anybody else should pounce upon local authorities and make them pay money which they never have been accustomed to pay into the Exchequer. The administration is difficult enough as it is, and it is going to be made doubly difficult, financially.
Apart from the financial loss, there is going to be very serious difficulty in regard to administration. Rate receipts will have to be stamped and one wonders what that is going to cost. One wonders how it is going to be worked out. Will county councils, after preparing the rate receipts which they ordinarily prepare, have to stamp them, or will they have to leave it to the rate collectors to do it? If they do, and if people do not pay on them, as in the case of credit notes—if a ratepayer is entitled to a credit note before a particular day, he is not entitled to it after that day—does that rate receipt go out even though it is stamped?
There are quite a number of matters in connection with this which, to my mind, are going to place financial burdens on local authorities, and increase the difficulty of administration. The present time is the worst possible time the Minister or the Government could choose for the infliction of a hardship like this. Surely to goodness, local authorities, looking at their accounts yesterday and to-day and every other day, are badly off enough? The rate collections were never so backward; grants are being withheld; the grant for the coming year is being reduced; and now we have a new tax imposed upon us. It appears to me that the Government have never realised at all the implications of all their acts on the community, and, particularly, on the rural community. So far as we are concerned, we object to this Bill and we shall oppose it.
I want to put this aspect of the case to the Minister. I can understand what he is up to. He wants to collect taxation without incurring very much odium, and he wants to get the local authorities to do it for him. He said when this Financial Resolution was going through that this would mean a revenue of about £20,000.
No. I did not say £20,000. I said that in respect of rate receipts the duty would be about £2,000.
I am talking about the amount of money which the Minister will derive from the withdrawal of the privileges which the local authorities have enjoyed since 1898. Does the Minister say that £2,000 is the total yield?
I am not in a position to give any estimate of the total yield. I have said that the yield in relation to rate receipts, which is the principal item, is £2,000.
You anticipate that the principal yield, which will be from rate receipts, will be £2,000.
Yes.
We cannot tell the Minister for Finance that he is making a mistake on this occasion. Let us suppose it is £2,000. What is it going to cost to collect the £2,000? Did the Minister ever ask himself what it cost to administer the graduated relief which his colleague the Minister for Local Government and Public Health set on foot? It cost the Roscommon County Council £1,100 to administer the altered scale of relief under one of the grants for which the Minister provided money. The alteration of the machinery over a period of three years cost the Roscommon County Council £1,100. What mechanics will be necessary to provide for the stamping of all the documents that have never been stamped heretofore? What they will cost I have not the faintest idea, but if the total revenue to be derived is only £2,000 surely the Minister ought not to press for such an alteration. If, on the other hand, the Minister has deliberately named a figure which in the letter is correct, but which for practical purposes is not the true figure, which I suspect to be the case—in fact I believe the true figure of the burden which will be imposed on local authorities by this legislation will be closer to £20,000 than to £2,000 —then I submit to the Minister for Finance that when he is casting around to find a new source of revenue the last class of persons in the community whom he ought to tax are the persons who to his own knowledge are bankrupt. There is not a single local authority in the country at the present time which is in a position to meet its obligations. When the Attorney-General waxes eloquent on the conspiracies to withhold rates, and alleges it is for that reason that the local authorities are insolvent, I invite him to take a trip down to the Banner County, the spiritual home of President de Valera, and interview the loyal sons of Fianna Fáil there, and question them closely——
On stamp duties?
——as to whether they had entered into a conspiracy to make the local authority of the County Clare bankrupt. The fact of the matter is that the local authorities are bankrupt. I say that that being so they are the last section of the community to which the Minister for Finance should turn for the purpose of inflating his Budget receipts. I urge most strongly on him that unless he has some very strong and cogent reason for altering the practice which has obtained in this country for 37 years in respect of local authorities he should not come to this House trying to get money from sources of taxation which he is not even prepared frankly to open to the House when he is asking it to tap them.
It is quite true to say that, so far as the receipt duty is concerned, which is the main point that has been made an issue in the debate, the amount of revenue which the Exchequer will derive will be small, but it is not to secure this small revenue that this proposal is before the House. It is, as I have said, to remove a whole series of anomalies which have been growing up since 1838 through the unwarranted extension of exemptions from certain obligations granted under certain Acts. It is clear that it is only payments in respect of poor rate that are exempt from stamp duty, and that as the law stands at present the Revenue Commissioners would be compelled—as they are bound to enforce the law—to take proceedings against all local authorities, particularly in urban areas and county boroughs, who are utilising a demand for poor rate as the machinery for collecting rates for other purposes as well. If they did that, as I feel they are bound to do as the law stands at present, it would impose upon the local authorities a much greater expenditure and a much heavier burden than will be imposed by compelling the local authorities to put an ordinary receipt stamp on all receipts in excess of £2. They would have to divide up the rate books; issue two separate demands for rates; stamp the receipt in respect of one part of the rate and enjoy this exemption in respect of the other. In order to do that, in addition to the increased staff which the local authorities would be compelled to employ, the Revenue Commissioners would have to employ increased staff also. Surely the simplest thing to do is to wipe out this anomalous exemption altogether and to resort to the simple procedure of requiring every rate collector to carry around with him a sufficient number of stamps to put a stamp on the receipt if he collects money from an individual at his own house, or, if the rate collector sitting in his office receives a payment there, to require him to put a stamp on the receipt when he hands it out. There is not going to be any elaborate machinery necessary, or any additional cost involved. Certainly it is not going to involve any local authority in an expenditure of £1,100 merely for the stamping of rate receipts. That is the simple position. It is because conditions in relation to this exemption have become so entangled that the simple and equitable course of withdrawing this exemption altogether has been adopted.
Might I ask the Minister a question? Is the Minister aware that whatever matters have been dealt with as poor rate, the county councils and local authorities are not taking advantage of those matters as poor rate? They are obliged to do that by orders from the Local Government Department.
To simplify the machinery for collecting the rates.
Would the Minister say why he did not deal with this the other way round, and that is to exempt all matters that were being dealt with as poor rate? Was not that a simpler and easier way? It would not involve any additional machinery and would leave the position as it was except to simplify it as far as the law was concerned. Was not that a simple thing?
But it would not have produced the revenue.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Ward, Francis C.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Davis, Michael.
- Dillon, James M.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
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- MacDermot, Frank.
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- Mulcahy, Richard.
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- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.