I move:—
That the Dáil agree with the Committee in Resolution No. 24.
Financial Resolutions (1941-42)—Report (Resumed). - Resolution No. 24—Corporation Profits Tax.
Is there anything to be said about it?
We have had two explanations of it. One is to the effect that excess profits are to be charged at 75 per cent., leaving the people with 25 per cent. Will the Minister give us examples of that?
I am not in a position to do so. I understood from the Minister that the debate on the last Resolution covered those two Resolutions.
How simple!
Then, start again.
The Minister for Finance, in the course of his Budget statement, said:—
"The effect of all the changes in the normal case will be that taking into account the 10 per cent. ordinary corporation profits tax charge on the excess profit, the excess corporation profits tax charge of 50 per cent. and the income-tax of 7/6 in the £ which will be charged on the balance of the excess after deducting the corporation profits tax charge, a company which is liable to be assessed to excess corporation profits tax will pay altogether 75 per cent. of the excess in taxation."
Will the Minister give us an example to show how that works out at 75 per cent? Some examples were given on another Resolution at an earlier stage. Will the Minister demonstrate how the 75 per cent. is taken?
Am I to conclude the debate?
We are asking how the 75 per cent. is arrived at.
When I am concluding the debate, I will do so.
The Minister for Finance said he would give these examples.
In proposing these Resolutions it is customary for the Minister to tell us what is intended, and he generally goes through the various points. There is a slight complication in this and the purpose of my question was to endeavour to restrict the length of the debate. It could be very prolonged if we were to go on speculating on what is likely to be the charge. We could be here until long after 10.30, and I do not suppose that is the intention.
Though these Resolutions are being considered on report, Deputies were permitted to put some questions in order to elucidate the points in the Resolutions and to speak subsequently if they so desired. Deputies were permitted to elicit information before intervening formally in the debate.
I am quite prepared to give the information asked for by Deputy McGilligan, but I am not going to submit to cross-examination.
I am sure if the Minister for Supplies feels it is not fair to ask him to deal with this matter, the House will wait until the Minister for Finance returns. This is a most important Resolution. It has been mixed up so much with the previous Resolution that it is most important that the situation should be discussed and clearly understood.
The Minister states that he will give the information asked for.
I am taking a purely notional case in order to show how, in certain instances, the tax will be paid by a company. Let us assume in the case of this notional company that the excess profits are £4,000. Corporation profits tax is payable at 10 per cent., and that amounts to £400. Excess corporation profits tax is payable at 50 per cent., and that represents £2,000. Income-tax is then payable on £4,000, less £2,400. That represents £1,600 at 7/6 in the £, or £600. The total corporation profits tax, excess corporation profits tax and income-tax amount to £3,000 in all, which is the same as a tax of 15/- in the £ on £4,000.
How is that £4,000 arrived at?
It is purely a notional sum.
What constitutes excess profits for this purpose—is it the difference between the gross and the net profit?
The calculation will be made on the net profit.
What about a company which has made a profit of £4,000 against the standard of £2,000?
An excess profit of £4,000?
Say they made £2,000 one year and £6,000 the next.
The 75 per cent. is got in the way the Minister indicated. We are assuming that a company has made, over the standard years, £4,000. Taking corporation profits tax at 10 per cent. that gives £400, which leaves the company with £3,600. The £400 has gone to the Exchequer. Then the 50 per cent. is charged, not on the £3,600, but on the £4,000. Later, £2,400 is subtracted from the £4,000 and the income-tax is levied on £1,600. We start off with taking £400 from the man who makes £4,000. Then we take £2,000 off a notional £4,000, although at that time he has only £3,600. The way it now seems to be done is by hitting a man twice with regard to one item of profit. That is supposed to be what will run down through the scale. You take 10 per cent. off the gross sum and then you go back to that sum, overlooking the fact that you have already subtracted 10 per cent., and you take half of what was there originally. It seems to be an odd type of tax. We now know what is being suggested.
We have the Minister for Supplies here and, that being so, I should like to point out that the whole case made for this is that people like Ranks were allowed by the Minister for Supplies to get away with an enormous amount of loot. That is the only case the Minister for Finance was able to make on the last Resolution and, because the Minister for Supplies allowed Ranks to rook the people of this country in such a manner, we are now going to get back, not what they have taken from the people of the country but, if they have made something over what the Minister allowed them to make, then we will take 75 per cent. off that excess—not off what they fleeced from our population, but 75 per cent. off what they made over a limited period. That is a very small amount compared with what should be taken from them if there were proper precautions taken. They should be paying not 75 per cent., but all. As it is, they will be asked to pay on a small excess over the inflated profit which they were allowed to make through the inefficiency and incompetence of the Minister.
The other persons were the bacon curers. The Minister suggested that I was somewhat anxious about retrospective taxation. In the case of the bacon curers, I pleaded that they should have been treated as one report said they should have been, and that was that they were people who betrayed a public trust, that they were people guilty of a criminal offence, and they should have been fined the full amount they took from the till. There were two commissions set up here at different times and one had to enquire into the results of either the complete incompetence of the Minister for Supplies——
The administration of the Minister for Supplies does not arise.
I am only referring to it in an incidental way to show the results of the comparison made and the level that good traders are being put at. The rogues the Minister for Supplies allowed to make enormous profits at the expense of the people are put forward as the two sets of people we ought to be glad to get after. The two sets of people are the Rank milling concern and the bacon curers. It is very little use to ask us to compare good traders who, possibly, have made even more profits than they would have made, or would have been allowed to make, if a prices control had not been established over them by the Minister; it is difficult to ask us to compare the case of the good type of trader and the profiteer who has been allowed to make huge profits since the war started despite the Minister's so-called prices control. The situation here is not represented by those phenomenal folk who did not endeavour to take advantage of the position, and who were content with ordinary profits, but it is represented by these people who had been making enormous profits. The warning that was given to them that their prices were going to be controlled was regarded by them as so much sheer nonsense. Their attitude was that the present Minister for Supplies did not know where he was going, or what he was going to do.
The discussion of the administration of that Minister's Department is quite irrelevant.
I hope it will be in order in discussing the control of prices.
That is very good of the Minister, and I hope he will not run away.
There was also a Prices Commission in 1926.
It is not often that the Minister seeks criticism here.
The Deputy is well known for his ability to run away.
I have often been here and the Minister has shown no desire to seek or to face criticism. One sign of that is that he will not even face his back-bencher, Deputy Corry. He clears out when Deputy Corry starts, and sometimes I sympathise with him, but there are other times when I know the reason why he clears out. What is the position that we have here? One thing is that the enforcing of this tax in the way it is proposed to enforce it will do damage to good firms. It is a matter of indifference to the people opposite what happens to these firms—let them crash, let anything happen to them, the Minister for Finance has to get his money. The contrast has been drawn here, however, and by more than his Party, with the situation that has developed under the successor to the Minister for Supplies in his previous job, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who has gathered in all the employers in the country, telling them that supplies are petering out, and asking them to carry on. It is notable that he did not invite the Minister for Supplies to that conference. He asked these people to carry on, to give as much employment as possible, and to keep their men going, as best they could, whether on rotational schemes, short time, week in and week out, and so on—any scheme that would help to keep things going. On the other hand, the Minister for Finance says, in effect, to these employers: "I want so many hundred thousand pounds, and I must get it whether your businesses go to the wall or not." Of course, when supplies give out and when the crash takes place that, according to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, is awaited in the autumn, there is one figure that ought to be there, if only in a white sheet, and that is the Minister for Supplies.
The businessmen in this country did make demands from January, 1939, to get into the office of the Minister for Supplies in order to know what he was doing in his new Department. He was not even engaged in the activities in which he is now engaged, of announcing shortages.
That is not relevant to the discussion of this Financial Resolution.
I am discussing the attitude of the Minister in connection with this matter.
The attitude of the Minister for Supplies is not relevant.
Very good, Sir. I hope we shall have an opportunity of dealing with it later.
I shall be glad to afford the Deputy that opportunity, and I hope he will not run away from it.
The Minister has not faced his critics anywhere. He would not allow the industrialists into his room.
Deputies should face this Financial Resolution.
In the situation as I see it, business has been brought to a very low ebb by the incompetency of the Minister for Supplies in regard to supplies. Businessmen are being asked to carry on by the Minister's successor in his former position, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, but the Minister for Finance says to the businessmen and industrialists: "We do not care how you carry on, or whether you carry on or not; we want this money." This Resolution is objected to on two grounds: one, that it is going to do more harm than good, that it will put industries out of business and add to the numbers of unemployed; it will still more seriously increase the numbers that the Minister left behind him. Secondly, it is putting all these people, whether they have good or bad records, on the same level from the point of view of business dealing. Certain people, undoubtedly, have made profits, and gross profits, and have been allowed to make them as a result of the incompetency of the Minister, but no matter how these profits accrued—whether as a result of the war or through better and expanding business, and notwithstanding the difference between those who made profits as a result of profiteering and those who made ordinary legitimate profits through better and expanding business—they are all to be treated on the same level, and this money is to be taken from them. In addition to these, there is a third argument against this Resolution, and that is that there is no account taken in the Resolution of what people have done with the moneys they have made. Even if moneys were made wrongfully and in excess, they still may have been put back into the business. Some of these people, undoubtedly, made money in excess, and sneered at the prices control; but even though they are rogues from the point of view of making money that they should not have made, is there to be no discrimination between those who involved that money back in the business, in equipment, or in getting in stocks that are seriously needed at the moment, and those who did not put their money back into the business? Will the Minister make no discrimination between the people who involved their capital back again in their business and those who merely spent it wishfully or on themselves? The Resolution as it is framed is likely to do enormous harm; there is no discrimination between the good and the bad trader, no discrimination between the trader who puts his money back in the business and the one who spends it badly, and for all these reasons we are against the Resolution.
I should like to ask the Minister on this Resolution—I am afraid we have not got the exact details—how far surpluses or excess profits will be allowed to be set against deficiencies in other years. I should like to point out to the Minister that in the former excess profits tax there was such a provision. Undoubtedly, this year, certain firms have made excess profits, but it is quite open to them to feel that, as in some cases, they have done 18 months' business with 12 months' expenses, and that now they are faced with doing three months' business with 12 months' expenses, if they are going to maintain their existing staffs.
Another matter that I should like to bring to the Minister's attention is that under present circumstances the average firm are probably unable to get materials to have their ordinary repairs for upkeep carried out. They are probably unable or unwilling, owing to the present shortage of petrol and new motors, to obtain new motor parts. They cannot obtain parts of machinery. Will a company, under this tax, be allowed an allowance as against those items? If they are not allowed to make provision for expenses which they would have incurred in a normal year, it merely means that their profits have been artificially inflated by expenses which they could not incur and which they ought to have incurred. I take it that the Minister does not want to see the commercial community come out of this period of crisis with their machinery worn out, their buildings falling down, and with no transport. That is not the way to face a period of reconstruction in the postwar time. I should like to appeal to the Minister to see that under this Resolution surpluses would be set against deficiencies; in other words, that it is only when a trader has made excess profits over a period that he should really be called on to contribute to the Exchequer the excess profits. I do not mean that he should be allowed to retain excess profits on the chance of his showing a deficiency, but I certainly think that, if, in one year, a trader shows a surplus, and, the next year, a deficiency, he should be allowed to set one against the other.
I think I am more at home on this Resolution than on the last. Deputy McGilligan has gone a bit each way in this matter. He is anxious, on the one hand, that certain uncertain friends of his should be punished and, on the other hand, that others should be protected. He is anxious, as he says, that Ranks and the bacon curers should be made to stump up, but he is not at all anxious that the people who fleeced the agricultural community during the past 12 months should be made to stump up. I am against this excess profits tax altogether. I do not think the excess profits should have been allowed to be made, but, still, they are there. We have this gent up in Drogheda, with his haul of £66,000 out of the wheat ramp, and my only regret is that he is going to be allowed to keep 5/- in the £ out of it. I do not think he should be allowed to keep that much. For every £4,000 he made, the Minister is going to leave him £1,000, and I do not think he should. I think that £1,000 should be taken also.
Practically 99 per cent. of those people in this country who call themselves businessmen settled themselves down at the start of this war, rubbed their hands and said: "Our time has come," completely ignoring the warnings given repeatedly here by the Taoiseach and by Ministers that they would not be allowed to get away with profits. The Government has taken very good care that the agricultural community as a community are not going to get away with profits. The price of everything we have for sale is to be fixed, and, if it is fixed in conformity with the other fixtures we saw here in respect of beet and wheat, we are not going to have much fat out of it. I appeal to Deputy Bennett and Deputy Hughes not to be led by the nose by Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy McGilligan in this matter. I appeal to every farmer on the opposite benches, and I put it to them that now is their time. There must be equality of sacrifice, and if they vote with Deputy McGilligan and Deputy Mulcahy to allow the looters to get away with the loot, in plain language, I am sure the farmers of the country will be thankful to them. I am sure that the poor farmer who gathered together a few "bob" to pay his annuities and rates, and who went in for seeds and found that the oats he sold to the merchant at 8/- a cwt. was resold to him at 25/-, will be very thankful to Deputy Hughes and Deputy Bennett if they walk into the Lobby and vote to allow that merchant to get away with his 25/-.
Let us get down to brass tacks and see where we are in this matter. Are those people to be allowed to get away with it? Is Deputy Bennett's or Deputy Hughes' farm labourer to have to pay 4d. extra on his ounce of tobacco out of his few shillings in the week and, on the other hand, are those gents, who made hay while the sun shone, to be allowed to get away with their pockets filled with loot? I know it will be damned little benefit to the farmers, except that they are going to be relieved of some share of taxation in the future, to know that if these people succeeded in collaring £1 a cwt. on our seed oats, the Minister is now going to take 15/- a cwt. from them. That is not going to be much good to us, except that it may relieve us of some taxation in the future, but it is still some satisfaction to know that these people did not get away with all of it. And it is in that connection that I appeal to Deputies opposite who are not tied to the plutocrats. Do they agree that the merchant who bought their seed wheat at the fixed price of 37/6 and sold it back to them at prices ranging up to 75/—he, of course, is one of the people who should be protected now—can better afford to lose 15/- in the £ on that profit than their farm labourers can afford to pay an extra 4d. on their ounce of tobacco? But in order that the necessities of this country may be met, their farm labourers have to pay the 4d. an ounce on tobacco anyway, and it is for them to say now whether that gent is to be allowed to get away with what he has taken from their pockets.
I want them, as agriculturists and farmers, to consider that aspect of it, and to consider also that whatever the Minister makes this year out of excess profits, if we do our duty here by our people, there will be no excess profits to be got next year. I hope we shall stick together in that regard. If the price of our agricultural produce is to be fixed for this year, we are going to follow it into the miller, and from the miller back to the consumer, and no retailer is going to get 25/- a ton on it, either, not to mind the £25 a ton that some of them got this year. We are going to follow it this year from the moment it leaves our haggards until it is delivered back again to the farmers who want it for seed, or to the consumer who wants it to eat.
That road was followed by several Deputies during the three-days' debate on Agriculture.
Now is the time we have a little opportunity of getting back——
From byroads on to this Resolution.
——all that was taken away from us by following that road. I appeal to Deputies opposite not to be led away by people whose only interest apparently is to protect this class of people. I do not think they should be protected. It is all very well for Deputies to talk about the post-war period and the necessity of having everything A1 for people in that period. I wonder what will be our position in the post-war period? This little war is going to last for three or four years yet, and, afterwards, we are going to start work on these farms after pulling the guts out of them by growing wheat and beet, without any artificial manures. What is going to be the condition of our machinery for carrying on? We have no excess profits to draw upon. We have no good-natured bank manager to go to. Bank managers, when a farmer looks for credit, in addition to the deeds of his farm, will require his insurance policies and other securities as well. When one of the so-called industrialists comes into a bank the manager says: "How many thousands do you want?" and the money is thrown out to him. There are not any bank managers who will treat farmers in that way.
Opposition Deputies talk about the worn-out machinery and the need for industrialists having a bank balance amounting to thousands after the war. What will be our position as farmers when the war is over after taking three or four crops of wheat out of every field in order to feed the people and without any artificial manure to put into the land? We will have to start the reconstruction job with run-out farms. What will be our position compared with those industrialists who are to be allowed to get away with the loot they have collected out of our labours and the money which should have gone to pay annuities and rates which they have dragged out of us for seeds and manures this year? They are to be allowed to get away with that loot in order to have their machinery in tiptop condition for the reconstruction period. There are the two pictures. The farmers on the Opposition Benches can do what they like in connection with this, but if they do anything wrong to-night I will take very good care that their constituents will know about it.
I want to draw the attention of the House to one picture which Deputy Corry painted. Deputy Corry has made a prophecy as to the way some of us will vote on this. He appealed to us as farmers to give the same consideration to this matter when voting on it as we did to the tax on tobacco. Deputy Corry who declares that he has so much sympathy with the class he referred to voted for the tax on tobacco. We voted against it and when it comes up again we will do so again. We think it is a pernicious tax, but Deputy Corry voted for it.
I did because it is necessary.
I am glad to see that Deputy Corry has run away from the policy of his Ministers for years past and has deserted the bolstered-up industries. I have always held that many industries in this country were too much sheltered, and I agree with Deputy Corry that the agriculturists have been the victims to a great extent. I am sorry that Deputy Corry was not always of that opinion.
I intend to vote against this Resolution, just as I voted against the tobacco duty, but for a different reason. So far as I can see from these two Resolutions we have mixed up the rogues and the vagabonds and the sheltered industries with certain respectable industrialists. Certain industrialists in this country carried on a decent and honest business, some of them for 20 or 50 years. They have maintained their industries in a respectable manner in ordinary times without making undue profits. Owing to the war they made certain extra profits. They are to be taxed on these extra profits in the same way as some of the bolstered-up industries that enjoyed a monopoly and whose standard for 1937 and 1938 is much beyond the standard of the decent, honest industrialists with whom, perhaps, they were competing. These industrialists will have the standard above which they will pay excess profits tax fixed at much too high a figure. In justice, their standard should be a different one altogether from the honest, decent industrialist.
While I agree to a certain extent with Deputy Corry, if I had my way I would take the bulk of the excess profits from all industrialists and distribute it amongst the agriculturists. That might not be a judicious policy in some ways, but I would do it. I have perhaps greater sympathy for the agriculturist and the labourer than Deputy Corry has. I have had the courage sometimes to vote against my own Party on matters concerning them. I do not think Deputy Corry has ever done that. On this occasion I would have no hesitation in voting against my own Party if it were not for the indefensible way in which decent, honest industrialists have been treated in comparison with some of the industrialists whom Deputy Corry referred to in terms which, I am sure, the Minister for Supplies agrees with to a great extent, although he may not have the courage to say what Deputy Corry said.
I am not opposed to the principle of the excess profits tax when it is administered with justice and fair play, but I do not think it is possible on the proposals set out by the Minister in his Budget speech to deal with the problem that is there. There is no discrimination made between those who have exploited, robbed and plundered the people of the country during the standard years and who were permitted to get away with it at that time, and the people who were starting an industry at that time and perhaps struggling for an existence and who are now to be put on the same basis. In other words, a man who made an excess profit during the standard year, provided his profit in the meantime has not increased, will not be liable to excess profits tax. An industrial company which started in 1935 and had an uphill fight for a few years and which, in the last two or three years, has shown a fair profit, is liable for excess profits tax to the extent of 50 per cent. on the difference between the profit it is making now and what it made during the standard year. Notwithstanding Deputy Corry's attempt at justification, I think no man can stand over that.
While I agree that no one should be permitted to make excess profits, this system by which it is attempted to collect tax on excess profits is not a system which will appeal to commonsense and that is why we oppose it. Deputy Corry talked a lot about the people who have plundered the farmers. Whose fault was that? Is not that an attack on the incompetence of his own Minister for not preventing that and an admission that there was no proper prices control? This is not the way to collect the money. It will be of little use to the farmer who, Deputy Corry admits, is being robbed, if it is collected now and goes into the revenue.
The proper procedure in that case would be to fix prices. We have already discussed the ways and means of doing that. It has been pointed out from this side, and by the Deputy himself, how it should have been done, but the Minister ignored the advice. I know a couple of companies who started business in 1934 and 1935 and they had a great struggle to exist. They were on the point of going down, but somehow they pulled through. Now they are showing an improvement, possibly an artificial one, since they are able to carry on with a rising market. The value of their stocks has increased, and they are showing a profit as a result of that. Are they to be asked to pay a tax on what we are calling excess profits?
The other aspects of the question ought not to be overlooked, that if there is a period of depression in the post-war period, and if those people are carrying big stocks, they are likely to depreciate in value. What is going to happen then? I think that any industry, company or corporation is entitled to provide against that sort of thing. On another Resolution, Deputy Childers referred to the action of the Minister for Industry and Commerce in inviting industrialists to come to this country to try at all costs to keep men in industry, even on short time. We are up against the position that we are suffering from an acute shortage of raw materials for industry. Problems of that kind are upsetting industry at the present time. Facing a critical situation of that sort, we object to any decent industrialist being called upon to meet a tax like this. This proposal is not going to get my support. I want to make it clear to Deputy Corry that there is no merit in the case he put up. In a case where excess profit has been made it should be tackled in a different way altogether. The proposal here, to turn some of the fruits of profiteering into the Exchequer, is going to bestow no benefit whatever on the people the Deputy says he is worrying about, the agriculturists. That will be of very little use to the farmer. He will not be able to put his fingers on much of it, and will not be helped by this Resolution. What we strongly object to is that no action is being taken against the man who has been plundering over a long period of years. In fact, this proposal is absolutely into the barrow of the man who plundered in 1937, 1938 and 1939— during the standard years. I say that because the basis upon which the Government are going to calculate his excess profits is a wrong basis. There is no justice in it. They cannot assume that everything was lovely in the garden in those years, and that no one was profiteering. Firms were profiteering in those years. That was exposed on many occasions from these benches. The Government, in fact, set up a commission to investigate the profits that were being made by certain industries in this country. It reported back that there had been exploitation and profiteering, but the Government paid no heed to its report. In view of the whole situation we could not be expected to support this proposal.
I find it rather hard to follow Deputy Hughes. He admits that there was exploitation and profiteering in industry previous to the war. In view of the fact that a man will not have to pay the excess profits tax unless his profits during 1939, 1940 and 1941 exceeded those of the best two years he had previous to 1939, I am at a loss to follow Deputy Hughes and other Deputies who have expressed their sympathies for people who have been making excess profits during the period in question.
But suppose a man made no profits in those years?
Then he will not be taxed at all. If a firm made no profits previous to 1939, it will be permitted by the Government to pay a dividend of 6 per cent. to its shareholders. There is another class. Even though a man made profits in excess of the profits he made during two of his best years prior to 1939, the Government are only demanding 50 per cent. of the excess from him. I think that is wrong. They should have demanded 100 per cent. I have been listening to this debate for the last three or four hours. Deputies have been talking about the man with a salary of £2,000 a year, the man with an income of £2,000 a year, and the man making £2,000 a year out of his business. Whether a man has wages, salary, or an allowance, that is his income. I think we would be far better employed if we took our minds off the people who are earning thousands of pounds a year, and paid more attention to the thousands of people who are trying to exist on 14/- a week or 23/- a week, men with wives and families, some with six, seven and nine children. If we did that we would be getting nearer to the reality of the position, and people outside this House would have more respect for us.
I do not know how anybody can stand behind people who have been exploiting the community. I have had considerable experience of dealing with employers over a long period of years, and especially since the war started. Workers made demands for increased wages. The whole cry was that wages could not be increased because no profits were being made. Now we find, as a result of the investigations carried out by the Prices Commission, that a number of individuals have been making profits during 1939, 1940 and 1941, that were in excess of what they made during their two best years previous to 1939. As I have said, I believe that 100 per cent. of those excess profits should be taken off them in the interests of the community, since we have thousands of people who are not living, but simply existing, in the country to-day. Deputy Hughes said that Deputies on his side could not be expected to vote for this tax because in his opinion it is bad and wrong. If the Government have failed to take profits off the people who have been exploiting the community for a number of years, including the combines— reference was made to them by Deputy Mulcahy—then I say the Government are to blame for that. I am sure that everyone with a sense of responsibility in the country blames them for it. There is no use in the Minister for Finance saying that he is going to get some of those profits back now. They should have been recovered long ago. There was no control whatever over the profits that some people, combines and others, were able to make over a period of years, including 1936, 1937 and 1938. I am quite satisfied that during that period excess profits were made by those people, and that the Government closed their eyes to it.
I have seen companies starting in a small way and getting monopolies. I have in mind one company that started with a capital of £10,000. After they got a monopoly for producing a certain article, they had a revaluation carried out to enable them to raise the value of the place to £60,000. They carried on for about three years, and afterwards sold their interest to another combine for £90,000, and they still have an interest in the concern for which they got £90,000. I think those are the matters on which we should concentrate our minds, and that we should tell the Minister that he ought to take 100 per cent. of the profits made in the three years previous to 1939, and give them to the people who are struggling to exist.
It may be useful if I intervene at this stage, before any other Deputy contributes to the discussion. There has been an appalling amount of nonsense talked about the question of profits and prices. Do Deputies believe that profits are always made by charging excessive prices, or that all profits represent excessive prices? The records of the Bankruptey Courts show that those who try to make profits by charging big profits usually fail. Most of the big profits in this country, most of the big profits throughout the world, were obtained by firms who were able to sell a little bit lower than their competitors. I could mention the names of firms engaged in business in this city who have made very big profits because, through their efficiency or organisation or methods of purchase or some other advantage which they enjoy, they were able to undersell their competitors. The consumers got the benefit of those lower prices, and the firm got the benefit of big profits. Surely Deputies will understand that the amount of profit which a firm makes is no indication of profiteering. There is a distinct difference between profiteering and the making of profits. I could engage in business, and, if I were able to find some method of production or distribution or some substitute material which enabled me to get an advantage over my competitors, undersell my competitors and drive them out of the market. I could give the people the benefit of my goods at a lower price than that at which they could otherwise get them, and make very big profits in the process.
It does not follow that the consumers are going to suffer. Clearly, the consumers are going to benefit by my enterprise. It is a fact that the making of profits is very often an indication of enterprise, of ability, of business capacity. There are many firms in this city, in this country, which might be described as only partially efficient. One of the problems of prices control, at any rate in the form which existed before the war, was how to handle the position of firms which, because they were less efficient than the others, had to charge higher prices than the others. I remember attending many conferences of people engaged in one industry or another, where I suggested that a particular price level should be adopted, and I found that some of the firms engaged in the business would make no profit at all at that price. They had to charge a higher price, and even at the higher price they made no profit. But the firms that were more competent, more efficient, could charge the lower prices and make big profits.
And you put them all on the same level.
If that is commonsense, I want Deputies to recognise it, if they are capable of recognising it, and, in discussing this Resolution, to bear in mind that the existence of profits— even of excess profits—is not a proof of profiteering. Deputy Hickey is very much concerned about manufacturers making profits. He thinks, like Deputy McGilligan, that any Irish manufacturer who makes a profit is a rogue, and that the State should step in and take the whole of his profits from him. Deputy Hickey is a representative of the workers, and claims to be interested in the welfare of the workers. Does he realise the possible reaction of his policy on employment?
I do, better than the Minister.
Within the last few days the director of an Irish company engaged in business in this country came to me and informed me that his company had been on the mat before the Prices Branch of my Department, and that the Prices Branch of my Department had insisted that his company should so regulate its prices that the total profit it would make in a 12-months' period would not exceed a certain figure. The following day, the same director, representing the same company, attended a conference in the Department of Industry and Commerce where he met the representatives of the traders who were handling the class of goods that he was manufacturing. Those traders said to him that they had reason to believe that no goods of that class would be imported into this country this year. Consequently, they wanted to discuss the prospects of this manufacturer increasing his output, doubling his output in fact, in order to ensure that there would be a sufficiency of the goods available in the country, and that no shortage would arise from the cutting-off of supplies. That manufacturer said to me:
"I can do that. I can double my output. I have the raw materials, I have the machinery and the workers. But I am limited to £10,000 profit. Why should I double my output, take the risk of putting more capital into stocks, putting in additional machinery, building perhaps an extension to my plant, if the total amount I am going to get out of it is to be no greater than if I carry on as I am at present with the same output and the same employment?"
Has Deputy Hickey, who wants 100 per cent. excess profits tax, taken that into account?
Is the Minister talking about excess profits now?
On the basis of this Resolution those are profits made in excess of the profits in the standard year. That manufacturer, or any manufacturer who increases his output in order to try to meet the deficiency in supplies due to the cutting off of imports, is going to be made liable to excess profits tax because he has increased his business. There is, therefore, an inducement to him not to take the risk of extending his enterprise in that way. That may be an argument against excess profits tax. The argument for it is that the money must be got somewhere.
Would the Minister say what he is doing in the case he has mentioned?
The manufacturer said to me: "I am prepared to do it. I do not think it is fair that I should be asked to do it in that way, but I can do it and I am prepared to do it." That was his attitude—it is the attitude of most manufacturers in the country— but I could have understood him if he took a different attitude. Surely Deputy Hickey, who wants 100 per cent. excess profits tax, must realise that what he is proposing to do is to destroy any prospect of increasing employment in the few industries in the country where expansion is possible under present circumstances.
Then I am not surprised at the profits made by certain combines when I hear that statement.
Of course, Deputy Hickey is completely illogical. I understand that he favours the idea of an industrial development policy because it would benefit the workers, but he objects to its conferring any benefit on the industrialists.
Do not insinuate that.
But he is no more illogical than the other members of the Labour Party. They are incapable of following any idea to its logical conclusion.
In discussing excess profits over a three years' period——
Of course, Deputy McGilligan's argument, as I understand it, is that the existence of excess profits which can be taxed is proof of the incompetence of the Minister for Supplies. The level of intelligence shown by that argument might be good enough for the anonymous letter column of the Evening Mail, but I suggest that it is too low for this House.
The standard is even too low to pass muster on my argument.
That is what I understood the Deputy's argument to be, and I think that is how everybody in the House understood it. Deputy McGilligan wanted to get an opportunity of talking about the incompetence and inefficiency of the Minister for Supplies, and of every other Minister. Deputy McGilligan is so certain that everybody in the world is less competent than himself, and speaks so frequently about incompetence, that it is obviously an obsession with him. He cannot get over the idea that nobody but himself can do anything. He did not do so much when he had the chance.
I did not do badly.
The people of the country did not think so.
We will see.
The Deputy can dish it out but he cannot take it. He will interrupt and talk and shout, and if necessary he will run out of the House. The powers which my Department exercise to control prices were given to the Government as a war emergency measure. We control prices under the Emergency Powers Act. These powers are drastic. Is it the considered opinion of the Party opposite that we should have these powers in normal circumstances, that that right to examine the accounts of every concern, to direct their methods of operation, to control their profits and turnover upon invested capital, to fix the price they will pay for the raw materials and what they will realise for their finished products should be exercised by a Government Department? There are various countries in Europe which regard that as the best method of organisation, even in times of peace, but I am surprised to learn that that is the view of the Fine Gael Party.
That is not your view.
I am not going to express my view. If the Government are going to be criticised for circumstances that existed prior to 1939, that criticism must be based upon the powers available to the Government prior to 1939. Our present powers exist under the Emergency Powers Act and they will expire when the war ends. If we are at that stage to introduce permanent legislation to confer these powers permanently upon some Department of the Government, we should have the opinion of the Fine Gael Party on that now. Deputy McGilligan says that every Irish industrialist who makes a profit is a rogue. It has been the characteristic of all people who have experienced years of slavery that the slave mind becomes predominant, and the outstanding feature of the slave mind is that it objects to the advancement of the neighbour's child. Deputy McGilligan is a case in point.
Ranks is the child in this issue.
Any Irish industrialist who makes a profit is a rogue—that is the attitude of Deputy Hughes, Deputy McGilligan, Deputy Bennett.
I indicated Ranks and the bacon curers.
Deputy McGilligan may be able to dish it out, but he cannot take it. I am going to deal with Ranks, too. If Deputy McGilligan is not too perturbed, perhaps he will allow me to continue my argument.
Do not call it an argument.
I am prepared to meet the Minister in the House or any other place he wishes.
I never spoke in this House in a long debate with Deputy McGilligan present, because his usual course is to make one of his "Smart Aleck" speeches and then bolt.
Perhaps your speech was not worth waiting for. I am prepared to meet you here or in any other place you mention, race-course or otherwise.
With one hand tied behind your back and standing on one leg, I suppose. As I was saying, there is that characteristic of the slave mind —it objects to the advancement of the neighbour's child. If anybody in this country promotes a new enterprise and makes good, then all the slave-minded people rise at once to tear him down. It is a condemnation of a man to say that he has made a profit. The head of a big English industrial concern who came over here commented on that after attending some Dáil debates. He said: "If my company in England makes an additional profit, we boast about it and put advertisements in the paper about it. Everybody applauds us and points to us as a great English industrial enterprise which is a success; but over here, if someone makes a profit of 5 or 6 per cent. he is immediately denounced as a rogue, a thief and an exploiter of the people." The Deputy was the curse of the country, simply because he had that slave mind, and the country got rid of him. Deputy McGilligan had no objection to Messrs. Ranks making big profits selling flour in this country when they were making the flour in Liverpool. On the contrary, he so approved of the profits they were making that he even asked them for a subscription to his Party.
He did not. That was denied. But we know where the subscriptions are going now.
It was only when, as a result of the imposition of tariffs, that the milling of flour was transferred from Liverpool to Limerick, and employment was given there, that Deputy McGilligan got annoyed. I had no power to control the profits of the flour millers until 1939. They are fully controlled now in every aspect of their operations. I control the price they pay for wheat and for every other material they use, and I control the price they sell their product at, and in no part of the industry is there the slightest excess profit being made, because it is under control. We can have that control in peace time if you want it.
I do not think it is logical to exercise powers of control of that kind and, at the same time, hope to make industrial progress though private enterprise. If you want that measure of Government supervision and control of activity, you have to have Government enterprise. Private enterprise cannot foster and progress under such circumstances. Deputies who believe in private enterprise must believe in private profits because they are the mainspring of private enterprise. People do not put money into business out of altruism, or merely to employ workers and relieve unemployment. They do it to make a profit and, if you take away the motive of profit, you take away all private enterprise and you kill progress and development, unless you wish to substitute the machinery of the State.
Deputies should make up their minds on that point, because they cannot have it both ways. At the moment Deputies talk with divers tongues and the result is merely confusion. Let them tell us definitely which course they stand for. Are they against private enterprise?
Will the Minister say, before he leaves the millers, what he meant when he said the other day, with regard to the millers and the bacon curers: "We are going to deal with them in a very drastic way"?
I did not say that.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce said it.
Well, I did not say anything of the sort. So far as every manufacturer is concerned, he is controlled at the moment in the profit he can make and the prices he can charge. There are great numbers of commodities manufactured here which cannot be dealt with by the system of fixed prices. You cannot fix a price for a suit of clothes or a pair of socks, because there is such a wide variety of designs and quality. For manufacturers of commodities of that kind the only system of control relates to the total profit they make. But where you deal with things such as flour, cement and bacon, you can deal with the situation and control it by means of fixed prices, and that is being done.
Notwithstanding the control, there was at least one instance of £29,000 net profit.
I do not know whether that could be regarded as excess profit or not—that would depend on circumstances. Deputies must understand that the circumstances of one industry are not the circumstances of another. Some people announced some time ago that they were going to make a petrol substitute out of some home products. These people are putting money into the manufacture of a product which will be saleable here only so long as the war lasts. When the war ends, their whole enterprise will be finished. Once petrol again becomes available in large quantities, these people cannot hope to sell their product. They will not put any money into the venture unless they can hope to get it back. It is a speculative enterprise, and they may lose everything. The 6 per cent. profit that other persons might be content with would scarcely induce people to put money into an enterprise of that nature.
The same applies even in times of peace. One type of enterprise is speculative. There may be the risk of a complete loss, and people will not take the risk of a complete loss unless there is also the chance of a big profit. There is another type of enterprise which is of a different character. Flour milling, for instance, has gone on for the last 2,000 years and it probably will go on for the next 2,000 years. In such an industry there may be some revolutionary change in the type of machinery used, or some other internal development in the industry itself which may involve the loss of capital to the people engaged in it, but the risk there is very slight and, consequently, people will engage in an industry of that type for a moderate return. In the case of an industry arising out of, let us say a new invention, however, which may turn out to be a complete flop, people will not take the risk unless there is a chance of making a big profit. These things are well known to everybody, and surely they are known to the people opposite who claim to be experts in these matters, although it is not easy to see how they justify their claim to be experts.
I am not surprised at your stand-still order after having heard what you said this evening.
The sole reason why this tax is put on is because the State must be financed in order to carry on the services of the State. Deputies opposite are in favour of the principle of taxation in general, but when it comes to any particular tax they oppose it with all the force they can. Taxes have to be imposed in order to carry on the State and somebody must take responsibility for the raising of these taxes in order to finance State services and to make possible the achievement of measures for which the Party opposite voted and which they very frequently demand. Somebody must take the responsibility, and if you will not face the unpleasant task of putting burdens on the people, in order to carry on the essential services, we have got to do it. When, however, it comes to a particular tax, you want to be in the position, in order to maintain your spurious popularity in the country, of being able to tell Tom, Dick and Harry throughout the country that you did not vote for this or the other particular tax and that, although you were in favour of taxation in general, you were certainly against that particular tax.
That is simply moral cowardice, and it is a good job that there are people here to take the responsibility of imposing this heavy burden of taxation which is necessary in present circumstances. The sole reason for this tax is that it is the aim of the Government to put the burden on the shoulders of the people who are best able to bear it, on the shoulders of these corporations who are making profits, some of them in excess of those which they made in pre-war years. It is on the shoulders of those who are more able to bear the weight that we are putting it. We recognise, however, that it is a weight, and that it may reduce employment and seriously impair the finances of some firms, but we have got to impair somebody's finances, and it is better that we should take money from these people than to take it from the worker by taxation on his tea, sugar, or some other commodity which he must consume and which he can barely afford to pay for.
There is one other thing to which I should like to refer before I finish. This corporation profits tax has been spoken of as if it applied only to industrialists. The number of these firms that are engaged in industry is only a minority. The majority of these firms are engaged in distribution, transportation, amusements or some other non-productive service, and many of these corporations are in the position that they will have to pay excess profits not because they engaged in profiteering but because of an appreciation in the value of stocks that they purchased before the war. These stocks have appreciated in value, and because of that increase these corporations are able to earn higher profits now than they were earning before the war. Deputy Dillon pleaded here that such corporations should be allowed, not merely to earn these profits but to retain them so that, when the reverse process started and when, after the war, stock values began to fall and the stock held by these companies began to depreciate in value, they would have a little reserve to tide them over that period. Deputy Dillon pleaded here for a modification of the methods of price control, which I had said I was bringing into force, so as to enable these companies to retain these profits. I refused to do it.
We have limited the profits of these companies and of all other concerns where stocks were involved, taking into account the price at which the stocks were purchased, not the value which they represented at the time that the investigation of their affairs took place. Deputies who want to use the occasion of the debate on this Resolution to attack Irish industrialists should bear in mind that this tax applies to many others apart from industrialists, whether they are the new industrialists whom Deputies Hughes, Bennett and Dillon declare to be all rogues and thieves, or the old respectable industrialists of whom Deputy Bennett approves, or whoever they may be. Deputies should approach this matter seriously. They should try to approach the economic problems out of which this Resolution arises, or which it will cause, in a serious manner, and not in the cheap-jack manner in which they have approached it.
Some time might have been saved in this House if the Minister who has just advised us to take this tax seriously had made as serious a study of it as he has recommended us to do. When he came in here to-day it was evident that he did not understand it himself, and he had to get information about it. Yet this is the Minister who is supposed to take his work seriously and who advises us to do the same. The very example that has been given is symptomatic of this whole business. We are invited to consider an excess profit of £4,000. I must say that for the best part of a week it has puzzled me to know how the Minister got 75 per cent. of the excess profits in this case. Of the £4,000 we, first of all, take off 10 per cent., which gives us £400. We then take 50 per cent. of the £4,000, ignoring the fact that £400 has disappeared. We get then, on paper, £2,000. It is obvious that there are only £1,600 left, and that, taxed at 7/6 in the £, gives £600—making up the £400, the £2,000 and the £600: that is, £3,000 out of £4,000 excess profits. Now, you have £1,000 left in that case. Let us take the example of a firm whose profits amount to £16,000 this year, and an average of £16,000 for the two previous years. May we ask whether this £1,000 left is added to the £16,000 profit and that that £17,000 then stands for treatment, in the first place, as corporation profits? If so, having deducted £1,000 excess profits, we have £16,000 left on which the 10 per cent. amounts to £1,600.
Deducting the £1,600 from £16,000, we have £14,400, and taking 7/6 in the £ on that we get £5,400 which, along with the £1,600, leaves us £7,000 for the Minister off the £17,000, which leaves £10,000 net profit after payment of income-tax, corporation profits tax, and excess profits duty—£10,000. I cannot stand over those figures because we have got no example except one in which there is a given figure of £4,000.
Taking again the £16,000 profit which last year was entitled to a reduction of £5,000 before excess profits were taken off, leaving £11,000 excessive: that, at 7½ per cent. amounted to £825, and assessing then, £15,175 at 6/6 in the £ we get £4,981 17s. 6d., or a total charge in respect of corporation profits tax and income-tax last year of £5,806 17s. 6d. The balance left in that case from the £16,000 was £10,193 2s. 6d. compared with the £10,000 to which I have just referred.
I want to know where is the 25 per cent. which we were told was earmarked for a fall in the price of goods for the period after the war and so on. But we cannot leave that £10,193 2s. 6d. or the £10,000 quite alone because a new tax has come in providing for an extra charge on the £16,000. In the first place, a deduction of only £1,000 is allowed, instead of £5,000, before we proceed to collect income-tax and we find that, in order to pay the extra corporation profits tax imposed in the previous Resolution, a sum of £405 12s. 6d. falls to be paid. Whether it can be regarded as a liability in respect of the year in which the £16,000 was made or whether it must come off the £10,000, I do not know. We have not been told that. I will not answer exactly for an accountant's report on these figures, but so far as the House is concerned that is the information put to us.
I am prepared to accept in its fullest implication a good deal of what the Minister for Supplies has just said with regard to the needs of industry, and the claim which industrialists have in respect of expanding business, to which reference has already been made, and to which Deputy McGilligan made reference last week. No business could expand on that basis. It could not be expected that any industrialist, however much he might be interested in his business or in his own profit, could see any hope of a development of industry on the basis of that form of taxation. Are we to regard this Budget as putting an end to the expansion of business? If industrialists are to go in for expansion, from now on they are faced with the fact that they must do it earning no more profits than they have earned up to this. If we are to take as interpreting the Government's mind the speech to which we have just listened, it is evident that industrialists must have profits, according to the interpretation of the Minister for Supplies, but how can they have profits under this form of taxation? Where are they to come from?
In whatever way a business expands, one sees in this whole proposal a continuous and continuing taxation charge in respect of every penny made. Surely in the form in which it has been presented to us, with not a single example put to us by the Minister, who has just left, surely there is not sufficient explanation and defence put before the House for this proposal.
I have covered, I suppose, a dozen sheets of paper trying to find out what this 75 per cent. charge represents. Does anybody in his senses claim that when you have taken 10 per cent. of £4,000, you are entitled to go on and take 50 per cent. off the £4,000? It is not there. We go through this huggermugger of a whole series of rules, regulations and postulations, the interpretation of which will keep accountants busy, and in respect of which they possibly can come to any interpretation they wish. Is it desired that there should go before the courts for elucidation what we, in our laziness or stupidity, are unable to regulate here? Why not say simply and plainly, without any unnecessary verbiage, that 75 per cent. of any sum in excess of a statutory amount in a standard year, or series of standard years, will be taken as taxation, and leave it at that? What is the necessity for saying that 10 per cent. of it will be taken, that 50 per cent. of it will be taken, and that then we come down to 7/6 in the £ on it?
Apart altogether from the question of the unfairness, the inequity of this tax on expanding business—presumably the greatest exponent in our time of expanding business is Mr. Henry Ford, and what hope was there of his giving employment to ten, 20 or 1,000 times the numbers he employed in his first year if he were faced with such a proposals as this?—there is the case of those who, in the stress of the circumstances in which we are living, and faced with this emergency, considered the desirability of spending their reserves on setting up some other line of business, and of exporting and selling outside this country the goods they manufactured. They are put in the same position as the people described as profiteers, as people charged with having taken too much money out of the pockets of the consumers. Take the case of those people who spent their reserves in order to give employment, who kept people in employment who otherwise would have had to go on the road, and who not only did that but actually employed still more people. There is a stop put to any possibility of their getting a fair return on the money they have invested in their business. This Resolution says to them: "You can go on with that species of industrial activity; you can give employment to a greater number of people; but, remember, the statutes of this State are going to ensure that you will not earn a sixpence in respect of it."
Take the case of a firm which has, perhaps, been singularly fortunate in having laid in stocks and made an excess profit in the first year. The following year instead of earning £16,000, the balance sheet shows a profit of only £8,000. They will have the satisfaction of knowing that, in a time of stress in this State, when extravagance distinguishes every service in the State, the excess profits they made in a particular year are employed to bolster up that extravagance and that wanton waste, but that not a single 6d. is to go back from the coffers of the State to reimburse their shareholders. Possibly we shall be faced, by reason of that position, with more unemployment. The Minister's explanation of the possibility of further unemployment is: "There must be industrial casualties"; "We have to hit certain people" and so on. That is not the frame of mind in which a responsible Minister should enter upon the consideration of a problem which is so important to such a large section of the community as in this country is dependent upon industry. This Resolution ought to be withdrawn. There is nobody I know in this country who is unwilling to get for the State 75 per cent., or even more, of the profiteers' gains. It is another question as to the date from which that should be done.
There is a natural and just objection to retrospective taxation. Take the firm that in these times of difficulty has distributed all its profits to its shareholders and is now called upon to pay an extra £400. Perhaps the £16,000 earned in those two years was far less than was earned in 1933-1934 and 1935, and it thought it was unfair when a time of difficulty came that the shareholders' dividend should be reduced. Why not take a six years' period as a basis and allow them the best two years out of the six? Is there anything sacrosanct about the three-year period? If the impression is to go out, from the speeches made from the Government Benches and by Deputy Hickey, that there is no sympathy for industrialists or businessmen in this House, what possible enthusiasm can they have in connection with their business? That would not be a true interpretation of the feelings of this House. It is not a line that the Dáil ought to take in connection with business; it is not a sound line or a business-like line. It is a line which could not be defended in any place except in an assembly that is reeking with politics.
The Minister who has just spoken said that we on this side are always endeavouring to do popular things. If we had done popular things, the Minister would never have been on the Government Front Bench and nobody knows that better than himself. We have no objection to taking any line, no matter how unpopular, if it is for the good of the country. We are not satisfied that we are justified in asking the people for the sum of money involved in this Budget at the present time. Apart from the businesses which benefited by reason of the increased value of their stock or the other firms which have managed to get an export business, is it conceivable that there has been an improvement in business since the war started? Does not everybody know that there is no truth in a statement of that sort? Nevertheless, at this time, after the lean period which agriculture had from 1932 to 1938 and when we are just staggering out of the difficulties of that time, a Budget is now brought in under which it is proposed to take almost £35,000,000 from the people of the country.
If we are to have regard to the Ministerial pronouncements, this is regarded as almost a pet tax. In all decency it ought to be withdrawn, and put upon a more just basis. Instead of the uneasiness which has been aroused by the effect of this tax on business and industry, greater confidence should be instilled into the minds of the public and into the minds of industrialists and business men. In its present form, this tax is practically as heavy as the heaviest tax put on during the last war by the British Government. I think the excess profits tax at that time amounted to about 80 per cent. But, if it did, provision was made, in the event of a reduction in profits, for a repayment out of the sums collected during the more prosperous period. There is no prosperous period here, and the extraction of this huge sum, amounting almost to £1,500,000, from industry must press particularly heavy on certain businesses. They will be called upon, in the first place, to find the back money in respect of corporation profits tax and then, having either distributed their dividends or made other provision in connection with the moneys, we now come along to take this other sum of money. There is no suggestion even that the payment of the tax might be spread over a certain period.
It is significant that, in the case of the two big countries which are locked in a deadly conflict, those who are in charge of the affairs of those countries are most meticulous in seeing that the impositions upon industry and the taxation imposed are so distributed as to cause no disturbance to their industrial and business life. I suggest that we should take a leaf out of their book in connection with this tax. If we do not want to follow their example in regard to hostilities, we ought to learn from the almost paternal solicitude they have shown for business and industry. The Minister would be very well advised to withdraw this Resolution and reconsider it; to do what is done in other countries before a tax such as this is imposed. They should consult some of the persons concerned, to see what possible safeguards can be inserted so as to allow business and industry to go on their way unimpeded by this enormous and unjust taxation. They should make provision for giving consideration to those cases in which there is an expanding business and more employment given. They should make provision for those cases in which new lines of business have been opened up and more employment given. That is not an unreasonable request. If the Minister would consider that, he might expect to get much more cooperation in dealing with the difficult time facing the country.
I have not very much to say, but I should like to underline and emphasise what struck me when listening to the last speaker. Unfortunately, I did not hear the earlier speeches on the Resolution, but I should like to underline the hypocrisy and humbug of many speeches made from the front bench opposite on previous occasions during past years by Deputy McGilligan, Deputy Dillon, Deputy Mulcahy and others, who made the House ring with all kinds of charges against the Government and individual members of it, of pampering the profiteers and allowing them to loot the pockets of the poor. These were the kind of phrases that were used over and over again. The changes were rung on that day in and day out, night after night for years. Deputy Cosgrave, perhaps, was not so insistent as some of his colleagues, but occasionally he was equally emphatic that this Government allowed the country to be robbed by flour millers, bacon curers, and others. Now, when we make an attempt to get some of these profits, the ill-gotten gains which they spoke of, we have a howl raised that we are hurting industry, that industry is not to be allowed to expand.
Deputy Cosgrave says that the industrialist has no future in this country. We have some Deputies howling with indignation because we are taking a portion of the excess profits, so called, while we have other Deputies who think that we are not going far enough in that direction. That is Deputy Cosgrave's forte. He is always indignant and always lecturing the other fellow. The attitude he adopts is: “Take example by me, remember what I did. I set you a good headline. Be careful now, and don’t do anything but what I tell you.”
It should be agreed by the public in general, if it is not agreed by the Deputies opposite—I take it they do not agree—that if there is justice in taxation at any time, there is a measure of justice in taxing excess profits. That is the basis of this tax. The Government does not want to injure industry. During the nine years that this Government has been in office, it has done twice or three times more to build up industry and to create industrial development in the country than was done by the last Government in the same period. We have given evidence of our paternal care for industrial development in the country. That fact speaks for itself. On that basis, I think it must be evident to everybody that we are not going to condemn to death, if we can avoid it, the children of our own adoption. We have not mouthed sympathy for those people and then knifed them in the back. We do not intend to do it. Excess profits have been made— I admit, of course, on a certain basis, but you have to take some standard—and they are now going to be taxed.
Would the Minister say how much he expects to get as corporation profits tax and how much as excess corporation profits tax?
I have not the figures.
And yet the Minister has been expounding in the way he has been, while he cannot tell us the amount of money that he expects these two sources will give him.
I have given the totals.
There is such an enormous difference between the ordinary people carrying on industry without excess profits, and the people who, he says, have been making excess profits, that he cannot tell us the amount.
The Deputy will have another opportunity on the Finance Bill to pursue that.
Question put.
The Dáil divided:—Tá, 48; Níl, 22.
Tá
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Carty, Frank.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Patrick J.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hickey, James.
- Hogan, Daniel.
- Hurley, Jeremiah.
- Keane, John J.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- McCann, John.
- McDevitt, Henry A.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Meaney, Cornelius.
- Morrissey, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Mullen, Thomas.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Loghlen, Peter J.
- Rice, Brigid M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Conn.
Níl
- Bennett, George C.
- Benson, Ernest E.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John A.
- Dockrell, Henry M.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, John L.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hughes, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Sullivan, John M.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reidy, James.
- Rogers, Patrick J.
- Ryan, Jeremiah.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Smith and Corry; Níl: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.