I move: "That the Dáil agree with the Committee in Financial Resolution No. 3." On the subject matter of this Resolution we had some discussion after the Budget statement. This refers to donations to charities, where people covenant to pay a subscription.
Financial Resolutions—Report. - Resolution No. 3.—Income-Tax.
I thought the Minister was rising to tell us that he had reconsidered this matter and that he was not going to proceed with this miserable little picking up of a few shillings, either from charities or from people who give moneys to charities.
I have reconsidered the matter, but not from the point of view the Deputy suggests. I have gone into the matter and I have seen a number of people who were particularly interested in the subject, the representatives of those who have been drawing some moneys in respect of certain charities. There were certain interests involved as a result of the way the law stands at present. Having gone into the matter fully, I think justice and equity and every right is on the side of the Minister for Finance.
If the Minister has discussed this matter with people who are interested, am I to understand that he has discussed it with representatives of charities that may suffer, on the one hand, or the representatives of persons who may be subscribing to charities, on the other hand? Surely the Minister might help his own credit in taking an action of this kind if he would take the House into his confidence and let us know some of the things that were discussed? As the Resolution stands, there seems to be nothing that can possibly be said for it. It is either putting a tax on charities that are enjoying certain conditions, or a tax on people who are supporting charities. They are now going to be liable for additional taxation because they are supporting charities. They will have to pay money by way of additional taxation or cut down some of the money given to charity.
I think that is not a correct statement of what happens. The charity is not taxed and the individual who covenants to subscribe to a charity is not taxed unless he derives a benefit in the case of surtax. The charity gets an addition from the State to the sum subscribed by the individual. It can claim under the law a refund of income-tax. The charity benefits to that extent. The individual does not pay any more income-tax and will not be called upon to pay any more—the individual who covenants to subscribe to charity. If my amendment goes through he will not be called upon to pay any more income-tax than at present. If he pays £13 10s. to a charity, he will still pay that amount, but certain charities will lose the £6 10s. that they are at present enjoying.
This does not come into the Budget Estimate at all. Someone said the other day that the Minister was balancing his Budget by taxing charities. The total amount in question is about £13,000. It does not this year come into the Budget figures at all. The moneys are never taken into account. They are paid out by the Revenue Commissioners and it is not a question of balancing the Budget by taxing charities. If these charities are to be supported, even if the Minister for Finance had to bring in a Vote to support the charities to the extent that they are now supported, I think it would be fairer and more open. It is doing it behind the scenes and behind the doors at present. We in the Dáil do not know, and cannot know in the ordinary way, about these matters. This does not come into the Votes or the ordinary accounts; it does not appear in the annual appropriation account or any other account, what amount of public moneys—we regard them as public moneys—are subscribed to certain charities. If there are to be subscriptions out of public funds to these charitable organisations, they ought to be made openly and above board.
I would be entirely prepared to support that principle.
I would remind the Deputy that we are not in Committee.
Will the Minister give us the benefit of his discussions?
If the Deputy desires to put one more question he may do so. Deputies may speak only once on any resolution.
If I am permitted, I should like to ask two questions. If all this terrible business of charities getting £13,000 is going to be dragged into the light of day, I subscribe to it. I hope a little more daylight will be shed on some other financial transactions in the country. Will a little more daylight be shed on those other financial transactions? My second question is, at a time when the withering hand of the State has been put down on so many things in the country and when the State has to feel in so many directions, through unemployment assistance and all that, again with withering effect, is it not an astonishing thing that the Government have to find £13,000, definitely and legally in the hands of small charities, and they have to pinch that and dry up the resources of these societies? If the Minister will agree to vote a sum that will make up the present losses to these charities, then we can understand that he may be afraid of a certain thing growing to too great an extent; but to take £13,000 from charities and to put it into the big maw of a Government that spends in all directions with withering effect, is surely contrary to the spirit that we were told is enshrined in our latest Constitution.
This proposal is, perhaps, one of the most retrograde that has ever been put before the House. Where it originated, it is very hard to say. To think that there is a member of the Ministry so impregnated with knowledge of the income-tax laws that he brought this up eight years after they came into office is scarcely credible—I do not believe it for a moment. That it is a conception of the Civil Service, I am perfectly prepared to accept. It is merely a left-handed method of destroying the whole code passed into law here by people we are never tired of criticising. As the law stands, money left to charity is not subject to certain duties; but it is going to be if this Ministry remains long enough in office. We are going to hear of the subsidies the State has been giving to charities. The Minister says this never appeared in the accounts of the House. It will appear next year in our Estimates in respect of income-tax. It has not appeared up to this.
The position we are faced with is that having had a code which was almost certainly non-Catholic that code recognised the worth of charities and the usefulness of charitable moneys, but we cannot. No, we must arrest these subsidies that are being given towards charities. There is no subsidy towards charity here. The man who gives money to charity, whatever it is— if it is the £20 that the Minister stated—has to pay 20/- in the £ by way of income-tax towards that charity. The Minister is not satisfied; he must get 6/6 and the charity will get only 13/6. It is a strange thing that it has taken eight years to discover this £13,000. We must be very poor indeed when we have to rob charities, and this is nothing else than robbery, to find £13,000 to balance our Budget, and unquestionably it is balancing the Budget, because if you had not got it, you would be £9,000 on the wrong side. We are told that we will not find it in the figures. Will you find the Minister's income-tax in the figures? You will not, because it is bulked with the remainder.
It is a nice epitaph that is going to be written for this Government that, whatever else it had, it had no charity. That is a nice certificate for anyone to get. Faith and good works will benefit you nothing, if you have not got charity; but there is the Minister now removing one source of charity which is going to unfortunate people whom the Government will not help and cannot help. It was one of the lights of past ages that, whatever the poor got, they got in an inoffensive way, in an unobtrusive way. They did not get it from the State, but from some ministers in religion, or people in religious orders, who were not called upon to fill up countless forms for the edification and information of the Revenue Commissioners and the Minister. We can label ourselves as we like, but we are making an attack now upon charities for £13,000 to balance the Budget.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 47; Níl, 17.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Carty, Frank.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Corish, Richard.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- Everett, James.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Friel, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hickey, James.
- Hogan, Daniel.
- O'Loghler, Peter J.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Rice, Brigid M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Loughman, Francis.
- Lynch, James B.
- McCann, John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Meaney, Cornelius.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Morrissey, Michael.
- Mullen, Thomas.
- Munnelly, John.
- O Briain, Donnehadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Laurence J.
- Ward, Conn.
Níl
- Bennett, George C.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred (Junior).
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Curran, Richard.
- Dockrell, Henry M.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hughes, James.
- Keating, John.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Sullivan, John M.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Smith and S. Brady; Níl: Deputies Doyle and McMenamin.
Question declared carried.