Before we adjourned consideration of this amendment, we were discussing whether this part of the Bill referred to directors, no matter what they were paid. I think we concluded that it was clear that Part IV of the Bill does refer to a director, whether he receives any remuneration or not. The exception included in sub-section (3) of Section 24 refers only to employees. If a person who is a director is caught under any part of this Bill, then he is caught notwithstanding the fact that the remuneration he draws out of the concern is far less than the limit of £1,500 specified in Section 24, sub-section (3). The effect of that clearly appears to me to be that under Section 22 in towns in rural Ireland many small businesses which happen to be private companies with small capital and small fixed assets, where the directors either live over the shop or, perhaps, have a room behind the shop for meal purposes, will, for the first time, be charged a rental for tax purposes in respect of the accommodation.
To me, that seems completely unnecessary, and to be as far removed, as chalk is from cheese, from the type of deliberate fake on which the Minister founded this Bill in the earlier discussions. If a company operates in Dublin and a director of that company prefers, for his own convenience, to live on an estate in Meath or Kildare some 20 miles away and, for the purpose of avoiding tax on it, ensures that it is bought by the company, I can understand that in such a case the Minister would provide that such a person would be assessed on a rental basis. But where we have—as there are throughout the country—a great number of small business people living adjacent to their work for the purpose of carrying on that work—not necessarily, or, to use a phrase we have already met, "wholly, necessarily and exclusively living there"—I do not think it is right and proper that they should be charged as provided in this section.
I asked the Minister some specific questions earlier, and as the Minister has decided to reject the method of getting the Income Tax Commission to report to us, I think the House is entitled to an answer to those questions. What is the purpose, the true meaning, of Section 22 in regard to benefits in kind? I am not interested at this stage in what is intended or in arguing about whether the Revenue Commissioners will "go for" this man or that man. I take the view already stated by Deputy Dillon that when the law is there, it is the Revenue Commissioners' duty to comply with the terms of the Act and operate accordingly.
I want to know clearly from the Minister are we correct in thinking that the phrase "in any of its business premises" in line 11, page 14, sub-section (2) of Section 22 means, as we think, that any director, even of the smallest business concern that is incorporated, who happens to live overhead will have the value of his living accommodation added in for tax purposes, or that even if he has a room at the back of the shop which is used for private purposes, as apart from shop storage, the value of that will be taken to be a benefit in kind and assessed for tax purposes?
If I am correct in understanding from the Minister earlier to-day that such benefits are to be included for the first time in taxation by reason of Section 22, then I think we have reached the position in which we can truthfully say: "This is legislation gone mad." Nothing in relation to the type of case the Minister mentioned earlier would justify provisions of that sort, and I think it is time the House considered whether, under the guise of a technical Bill to get over imperfections, something really radical is being "put across" us all.