Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 5 Jul 1938

Vol. 72 No. 3

Committee on Finance. Financial Motions. - Motion No. 2—Income-Tax.

Mr. MacEntee

I move:—

(1) That where any funding bonds are issued to a creditor in respect of any liability to pay interest on a debt to which this Resolution applies, the issue of those bonds shall be treated for all the purposes of the Income-Tax Acts as if it were the payment of an amount of the said interest equal to the value of the said bonds at the time of the issue thereof, and the redemption of the said bonds shall not be treated for any of the said purposes as payment of the said interest or any part thereof.

(2) That this Resolution applies to all debts owing by any government, public authority, or public institution whatsoever or wheresoever and to all debts owing by any body corporate whatsoever or wheresoever.

(3) That in this Resolution the expression "funding bonds" includes all bonds, stocks, shares, securities, and certificates of indebtedness.

This is a case which I also referred to in the course of the Budget statement. It is similar in some respects to the case which has been already dealt with in motion No. 1. A foreign Government issued funding bonds in settlement of interest due on one of its Government loans. They were not able to meet the charge on the loan on the due date and issued funding bonds instead. The English courts have held that in such a case the value of the funding bond was not income to the recipient. The Resolution which we are now dealing with provides that in such a case the issue of a funding bond shall be treated for income-tax purposes as if it were the payment of an amount of interest equal to the value of the bond at the time of issue and, as a corollary, that the redemption of the bond, when it is redeemed, shall not be treated as a payment of interest.

General Mulcahy

The Minister in the course of the last answer he gave on the previous motion was more confusing than in anything he said before and seemed to contradict everything he said before. It would help us to understand this case if he would deal with a specific case, imaginary or otherwise. The statement of the Minister, which was in general terms, is very difficult to understand and, in view of the fact that his last statement contradicts everything we understood from him before, and is probably wrong, I suggest that it would be much more informative if the Minister would deal with a concrete case.

Mr. MacEntee

When a Deputy alleges that another Deputy is wrong, surely it is incumbent on the Deputy to show that, in fact, the other Deputy is wrong. I do not think that these wild statements of Deputy Mulcahy have the least value. I have to repeat what I have already said, that where a foreign Government issues a funding bond in settlement of interest due in respect of any of its loans—I do not know whether it is necessary to explain what a funding bond is—the court has held that in such cases the value of the funding bond is not income of the recipient. I do not know whether it is necessary to explain who is the recipient. He is the person who gets the funding bond. I hope the Deputy is listening attentively to me.

General Mulcahy

I am listening for the figures.

Mr. MacEntee

There are no figures. We are discussing a general principle. No specific case has arisen here and we are merely making quite certain that should such a case arise, a decision which, from our point of view, would be very undesirable would not be taken by the court. The clause before the House provides that in such cases the issue of a funding bond shall be treated for income-tax purposes as if it were the payment of an amount of interest equal to the value of the bond at the time of issue and, as a corollary, that the redemption of the bond, when it is redeemed, shall not be treated as a payment of interest.

Mr. Cosgrave

Will the Minister take into account that the funding bond may possibly include five or six years' payment of interest? Is the income-tax payer to be charged, in one year, tax for the accumulated interest of five or six years which in the normal course he should receive in five or six smaller sums?

Mr. MacEntee

A funding bond would be issued only in respect of the interest for each year.

Mr. Cosgrave

Presumably if a funding bond is going to be issued, it will be issued in respect of some payments that have been withheld?

Mr. MacEntee

The full amount of the income received by the person would be treated as income for that year.

Mr. Cosgrave

Precisely. That is the point I am arguing. A person may receive, by way of a funding bond, five years arrears of interest in one year. Is he going to be charged income-tax on these arrears of interest, as if they represented his normal income for five years? If so, it may happen that by reason of the non-payment of the interest during these five years a person may have to pay five times the amount which he would ordinarily be called upon to pay if he had received the interest yearly.

Mr. Dowdall

I presume the Minister does not intend that the Inland Revenue authorities would make application to an income-tax payer for tax on a funding bond of that description except it was really equivalent to a dividend warrant.

Mr. MacEntee

On the point which Deputy Cosgrave has raised, it is quite clear that if a funding bond carried two years or three years interest, the usual practice is to charge tax upon the income received in that one year. No taxes have been charged in the preceding years. It may happen as a result of that, that a person may be charged at a higher effective rate.

Mr. Cosgrave

That is what I mean. This Resolution ought not to mean a greater liability on any individual. It ought not to mean a greater liability on an individual income-tax payer than if he had been regularly paid the interest during each of these five years. Take the case of a man who is supposed to receive £200 in dividends each year. For the years 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1937 he does not receive any interest. Then suddenly in 1938 he gets a bond for £1,000. If this Resolution is passed, it would deprive him of the advantage of getting the lower rate, or of not being subject to the higher rate. He has had the disadvantage also of not getting his money for five years, in the first instance. Having remained out of his money for five years, it is, I suggest, unfair to charge him at the higher rate which the issue of the bond for five years arrears would impose upon him under this Resolution. It ought not to be outside the bounds of possibility to arrange that he would be only liable for whatever amount he would have been obliged to pay if he had received the income in each year of the five years.

Mr. MacEntee

This particular Resolution, I would submit, is not the place to raise that matter, because that principle, whether for good or for ill, runs and always has run—at least for a considerable number of years past—through the income-tax code. A person is charged on the full income which he receives in one specific year. If, for instance, a person has not been able to collect, for one reason or another, the interest in respect of a bond over a number of years, when that interest is collected eventually, it forms part of his income for the year he collects it. That is the whole principle. There is no departure from the general principle of the income-tax code in this Resolution.

Mr. Cosgrave

There would obviously be no reason for putting down this Resolution if this method of charging tax were already part of the income-tax code.

Mr. MacEntee

The reason is——

Mr. Cosgrave

The Minister can explain whether or not it is a departure from the income-tax code by dealing with this case which I shall put before him. I am taking the case of a person who was entitled to receive £200 interest each year, for five years. If he had received that income each year, he would be entitled to claim a personal allowance of £125 for each year, and he would be liable for tax at the lower rate on only £75. He suddenly gets a bond value £1,000 in respect of these five years, and he is charged at the rate of 4/6 in the £ for every £1 over £225. In other words, he has remained out of his money for five years and the Government then comes along and taxes him at three or four times the amount which they would normally have received from him. I am not dealing with rich people. They can afford to look after themselves. The Minister, having made overtures to them recently and having been successful in these overtures will, no doubt, also look after them. I am dealing with the case of a small person who had an income of only £200 or less. Take the case of a person who has an income of only £100 a year. In each separate year, there would be no liability at all on him to pay income-tax. But supposing that having got no money for five years, he gets a bond for £500 at the end of that period, he becomes liable for the payment of a substantial amount of tax in that year whereas, if he had received his interest each year, there would be no liability upon him to pay income-tax.

Mr. MacEntee

It amazes me how Deputy Cosgrave misses his opportunities. This is a case that would appear, at first sight, to be one of hardship. But the Deputy was, on one occasion, not merely head of the Government, but also Minister for Finance. He could have remedied this position then if he had so desired. Where arrears of investment interest are paid in one year, the income of the recipient has always been deemed to include the amount which fell to him for that one specific year, irrespective of whether the preceding years were lean ones or not. That has always been the position. We are not proposing to make any change. We are only saying that where instead of getting the money he gets, instead of the cash, a funding bond, which may be disposable, that that bond will be regarded according to its value, as income of the person who gets it. That is the position here. We are not proposing to depart in any way from the general position.

Mr. Cosgrave

We are changing the law. We are making a new law. The Minister fears that the courts, at the moment, will decide against him, and he is making a law under which a person who was not subject to income-tax for five years, assuming that he had a holding of £100 and no other income, by reason of the funding bonds is going to pay income-tax and be charged at the rate of 4/6 in the £.

Mr. McGilligan

Is it not the position that this is new to that extent?

Mr. MacEntee

No, it has always been the practice.

Mr. McGilligan

Apart from practice, is it the law?

Mr. MacEntee

We hold that it has been the law, but in case there may be some person who may proceed to litigate vexatiously, we are making this declaratory Resolution.

Mr. McGilligan

There will be penalties?

Mr. MacEntee

I do not know.

Mr. McGilligan

I assume if the law is broken that there will be penalties?

Mr. MacEntee

I am not prepared to say if there will be penalties until the law is broken.

Mr. McGilligan

If it is retrospective, and if the law is deemed to be broken, there will be penalties. Is not that so? I think a constitutional point arises. There is a provision in the Constitution regarding offences that were not so on the date of commission. Does this not propose to do that?

Mr. Dockrell

I would like the Minister to consider the case of a person who, if he received income-tax demands over a number of years, would have received allowances but, by reason of not receiving income over a number of years the allowances fell to the ground. As the allowances fell to the ground by reason of a person not receiving sufficient income, or for some other reason, I think the Minister should let what is sauce for the goose be sauce for the gander. If income is regarded as the income received in one year, then the allowances should also be brought forward by the income tax payer. Another question arises regarding supertax. Would that come under the terms of the supertax for one year or be deemed to be spread over a number of years when making up returns?

Mr. MacEntee

That is a general question and does not arise on this matter. With regard to Deputy McGilligan's point, there is no substance in it at all. We are not legislating here to invalidate anything which has been done. We are legislating to make things lawful.

Mr. McGilligan

How will you enforce this?

Mr. MacEntee

We may not be able, in so far as there might be an attempt on the part of someone, to evade it, to enforce it retrospectively. I am not certain what the courts would hold. We do not know what their view may be on the existing law. It may be that they would hold that this was not necessary. We cannot afford to take any risk, however, and we are not taking it. We would not be justified in taking it. Why should the Government charged with the collection of taxes not do so equitably?

Mr. Cosgrave

Equitably?

Mr. MacEntee

Because there was a flaw in the drafting? Why should the legislature permit itself to be defeated when we can bring in a Bill to secure for the State what is justly owing by taxpayers who may wish to evade their liabilities and responsibilities?

Mr. McGilligan

How will they get it?

Mr. MacEntee

That remains to be seen.

Mr. McGilligan

If it is by the usual machinery of making it an offence to make a false declaration with regard to this matter, and if the Courts would not hold in accordance with the terms of it, are you not making something an offence which was not an offence at the date of commission?

Mr. MacEntee

That is a matter the courts will have to decide.

Mr. McGilligan

No. If the Bill contains that, on the face of it, there is not an expression of amendment of the Constitution.

Mr. MacEntee

The Bill does not contain anything which will invalidate anything already on the Statute book. So far as we know, the original provisions were drafted in such a way as to make it possible to deal with such income as is here concerned. A decision in another place was as to whether the draftsmanship was sound and not as to what was the intention here.

Mr. McGilligan

As to what the law was.

Mr. MacEntee

As to what it was in another place—Great Britain. That is where the doubt was caused. No one has raised the issue here yet. We are now getting a declaration as to what was the intention. As to whether it is a matter of penal legislation that will be decided by the courts when they have the existing provisions and the new provisions before them. If they decide that the existing provisions here are, as was held in Great Britain, then a question of penalties retrospectively might arise in the courts, but not otherwise.

Mr. McGilligan

Have you read the Constitution? Do you know what is in it?

Mr. MacEntee

We are hoping that the legislation and the provisions of the statute will not be interpreted by our judges as elsewhere.

Mr. McGilligan

The situation is that by a decision in another country the clause is rendered necessary. If the decision here was the same as in England that clause would be necessary. It is rendered necessary to make the law what the Minister thinks it ought to have been, and that he is afraid the courts will pronounce it was not previously. The only way to enforce payment was by making certain things offences, with penalties. I would be pleased to know that all the rubbish at the bottom of the income-tax sheets after one has signed is not meant. The suggestion here is that there is a doubt. The Minister says it is hardly doubtful. The situation by the decision elsewhere is that this is necessary, and if necessary it does remake a particular situation with regard to the law. It is going to be made retrospective, because it did not apply for the year beginning the 6th April, 1938, and other years. What is the way to enforce it if it is required? I suggest it is through the ordinary machinery of enforcing court orders, where a system is adopted of making offences. This will make something an offence which was not an offence at the date of commission. That is forbidden by the Constitution. If you want to amend the Constitution you are bound to do it openly. If you pass this you run the risk that the Bill may be held up to get a decision from the Supreme Court as to whether or not it is an offence against the Constitution.

Mr. MacEntee

Even if the Deputy is in the Opposition he should not be absurd. Why does he assume that the decision given elsewhere will be given by our courts?

Mr. Cosgrave

You are assuming that.

Mr. MacEntee

We are not.

Mr. Cosgrave

What is the meaning of the Resolution?

Mr. MacEntee

We are facing the possibility. The Deputy is aware that there is some difference between possibility and probability. In order that the possibility may not arise and that the State and the general body of taxpayers and citizens may not suffer consequent loss for the benefit of one or two individuals who are not prepared to bear their fair share of the burden of the national service then we bring this amendment in to make the present position sound, to make it water-tight. Did the Deputy never hear of caulking a ship? I was just dealing with this absurd proposition here that because the English courts have given a certain interpretation of the law in their country that the Irish courts are going to follow that precedent. The Deputy is as well aware as I am—he ought to be better aware, he is a lawyer—that the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeal in both countries have often been in conflict with regard to decisions on certain provisions of the Statutes, and it is quite possible that a view taken by our courts here would be different from that held by the courts in Great Britain. In order, as I have said, to avoid vexatious litigation, because it would be vexatious in this sense, that no Government could afford to allow that interpretation of the existing law to go unchallenged. The British Government against whom the decision has been given have not permitted it to go unchallenged—they brought in a provision to amend the law and make it effective——

Mr. McGilligan

Retrospective?

Mr. MacEntee

To make it effective.

Mr. McGilligan

Retrospective?

Mr. MacEntee

There is no question of retrospective legislation here, not in the sense in which the Deputy wishes that word to be construed. I was saying that in Great Britain—if I may be permitted to speak without continuous interruptions—I was saying that in Great Britain they brought in a provision in the Finance Bill of this year——

Mr. Cosgrave

Did they settle the particular case?

Mr. MacEntee

It does not matter. No case has arisen here.

Mr. Cosgrave

You do not know whether they did or not.

Mr. MacEntee

No case has arisen here. I am not concerned with what the British Government did in regard to British income taxpayers.

Mr. Cosgrave

Up to a point the Minister is.

Mr. MacEntee

I do not know whether they settled the case with that particular income taxpayer or not. I do know that they amended the law to make it quite clear to the courts there.

Mr. Cosgrave

Did they amend it retrospectively?

Mr. McGilligan

No, they did not.

Mr. MacEntee

This is not merely a case of what we have thought the law to be during the six years we have been in office but what Deputy Cosgrave and Deputy McGilligan and Deputy Mulcahy thought it to be during the nine or ten years they were in office and I think we are perfectly justified in taking that view of the law. The purpose of this legislation is to confirm that view. The question as to whether we should sue for penalties and recover penalties is a matter the courts might have to consider if in fact we did it, but, of course, we can collect the tax without recourse to penalties as the Deputy may know.

General Mulcahy

If the purpose of this amendment is to protect the position which in fact operates in the country at the present time, would the Minister say how much revenue annually is involved? Surely, if he proposes to operate in this particular kind of way, he has made himself familiar with how much revenue is involved in the matter.

Mr. MacEntee

Sir, the Deputy knows as well as I do that the amount would vary from year to year.

General Mulcahy

How much?

Mr. MacEntee

According, first, to whether people were receiving interest on funding bonds; according to whether they sold foreign securities and invested them in Irish securities, or whether they sold Irish securities and invested them in foreign securities.

General Mulcahy

How much was involved last year and the year before? The answer is you do not know.

Mr. MacEntee

I do not know, and neither does anybody else know. The Deputy is only wasting time. He knows that as well as I.

General Mulcahy

I have not been responsible for wasting as much time as the Minister.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy puts that absurd statement——

Mr. McGilligan

Why not sit down?

Mr. MacEntee

Sir, is that in order?

Ceann Comhairle

No. Although we are in Committee, and Deputies have a right to speak several times, any Deputy on his feet—or Minister— should be allowed to make an uninterrupted statement.

General Mulcahy

So much has been said about the desirability of protecting the taxpayer by seeing that the revenue was not defrauded in any way, I would like to ask the Minister whether the amount involved in revenue last year was £50 or £5,000.

Mr. MacEntee

It might have been £50,000. I do not know, and the Deputy does not know.

General Mulcahy

But the Minister knows perfectly well that it was not £50,000.

Mr. Cosgrave

It was not £2,000.

Mr. MacEntee

I do not know how much it is.

General Mulcahy

The Minister has not an idea, and he comes in here and he gives us long warnings about the necessity for doing justice to the taxpayer in this country by seeing that this particular motion was passed, and it is all eye wash. The Minister cannot tell us whether it was £50 that was involved in this matter last year. He mentions £50,000 now, but it has as much relation to this subject here as, say, the £4,000,000 additional taxation that the Minister put on the unfortunate taxpayers in this year without blinking an eye about it.

Mr. McGilligan

I assume this is clear. In any event it is clear to this extent, that if this retrospective legislation has to depend upon the enforcement of penalties through the machinery of deeming things to be offences then it is unconstitutional.

Mr. MacEntee

I have not said so.

Mr. McGilligan

The Minister does not say so. I suggest that it is. Let us leave out the bleeding taxpayer— the taxpayer whom the Minister is out to bleed so much—let us leave him out of it. It does not matter very much whether the revenue of the State or the taxpayer is going to be mulcted and for the sake of something that is very small and for the sake of something in regard to which a saving clause to protect the Constitution might easily be inserted. The Minister is just going to drive ahead with the casual remark—"We leave that to the courts afterwards." Now, clearing away the verbiage, the situation is this. There has been an English decision interpreting the law in a particular way. The Minister is so far afraid that the courts here will accept that decision that he moves to amend the law and he moves to amend the law retrospectively. He throws all this into the ordinary framework of tax, income-tax, and tax collection, and one of the methods by which the tax payment is enforced is this matter of penalties, penalties because of offences. That is clearly bringing all that atmosphere, all that background of offences in upon this matter. Anybody who has listened to income-tax cases being decided must have ringing in his ears statements from judges that in the background always is this question of the offence that has been or may have been permitted if the matter had been pressed. Whether that is pressed or not, if the amendment here brings about such a change that in fact something is declared to be an offence at a date when at the date it was committed it was not an offence then there is an amendment of the Constitution. That amendment may be meant; it may be even necessary to have the amendment, but there is a way of having the Constitution amendment laid down. There is a further thing. If a Bill is found to amend the Constitution when it is not meant to do so or if either the Seanad here or the President decides that the Bill does amend the Constitution or that there is some doubt about it then there is a question of reference to the Supreme Court and a possible reference to the people. And all that is going to be risked in order to get through here, casually and simply, a phrase which could be quite easily made foolproof by the insertion of two or three words. The Minister will have his own way.

Mr. Benson

Am I right in assuming that these funding bonds will bear interest?

Mr. MacEntee

Presumably, yes.

Mr. Benson

So that, in fact, there is going to be income tax paid twice over, on the funding bond which has come in as interest and then becomes principal, and there will be a further income tax levied on the interest on that interest?

Mr. MacEntee

Not unless the bond is disposed of.

Mr. Benson

It would surely be liable to income tax, that is, interest on what was originally interest?

Mr. MacEntee

Yes.

Mr. Benson

It comes in first as interest and interest accrues on it subsequently, so there will be income tax paid twice over?

Mr. MacEntee

The interest is paid to the recipient, whoever gets it.

Mr. Benson

My point is that you are making it liable to income tax twice over.

Mr. MacEntee

It will depend on the owner of the bond at a specific date.

General Mulcahy

Briefly, the Minister is preparing here to secure that the people who last year expected money from people who were not able to pay, would get next year, or the year after, the interest on their funding bonds, and that they are not going to escape the Minister here. They may have their difficulties in countries abroad, where their money is invested, but whatever those difficulties are, and to whatever straits they are reduced, as soon as they get any kind of a halfpenny here the Minister for Finance will be after them.

Mr. MacEntee

Any person with income assessable to tax is liable to pay the tax. I assume that in some of these cases they may sell the funding bonds abroad.

General Mulcahy

The Minister smacks his lips.

Mr. MacEntee

No, but apparently the Deputy is anxious that those people should get off, should be relieved of their responsibilities.

Mr. McGilligan

It might be £50,000 in the year, you say. It is certainly outrageous.

Question put and agreed to.