Vol. 235 No. 7
I move:
That a sum not exceeding £4,410,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1969, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, including certain other services administered by that Office.
I misunderstood: I thought we were going to do all the Supplementary Estimates first. In relation to the Estimate for the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, I should like to have from the Minister some indication of how the computer is, for want of a better word, acting up. Naturally enough, there were very considerable teething troubles in the beginning. In the beginning, it was pretty regular that complaints were coming in about mistakes having been made in the computer. I do not know whether it was in the programming, the feed, the computer itself or the method. I must confess I have received far fewer complaints recently and I am assuming on that account that the teething troubles have been to a large extent resolved.
Secondly, in relation to the general position of the Revenue Commissioners—I presume this is the right Vote on which to raise the matter—I should like to hear from the Minister what progress has been made in relation to the printing of the volume on death duties. The Minister must be getting pretty tired of my queries in that respect. Of course, if that is so, it is to some degree his own fault for not having delivered the goods on time, as promised. The volumes that were issued by the Revenue Commissioners on stamp duty and the loose-leaf income tax volume have been most helpful. It would be very desirable indeed that the similar death duty publication should be produced with all possible speed.
Apart from that, there is another volume that should be produced in the same way, a volume which will not require nearly as much work but certainly is very desirable for the taxpayer, for the practitioner and even for Revenue itself, that is, a similar collection of Acts relating to corresponding procedures, which, as the Minister knows very well, is a comparatively recent task but yet at the same time one in respect of which the various nuances and amendments of statutes down through the years cause considerable trouble to all concerned, even to the members of his own Department and the Revenue Commissioners in their endeavours to collect them. On this, too—perhaps I might leave it until we get to the Finance Bill, which I suppose we will probably be taking next week if it is issued to us in time— I might get some categorical announcement by the Minister in relation to the exact form in which he is going to deal with the change announced in the Budget that there will be no Schedule A or Schedule B tax for next year. I do not know whether I should deal with it on the Estimate as such or on the Bill next week. May I take it we will be seeing the Bill in the course of the next day or so?
I hope so. It is cleared by the Government.
Then I suppose the printing of it must be something that is a matter of very short delay. I am a little intrigued in relation to the Estimate itself as to why there is such a very large percentage increase under Subhead D, an increase of about 35 per cent. I should have thought that the charge for security printing was something which would more or less flow from year to year without any very great variation. The bill for the Revenue Commissioners is an extremely large one and at the same time, one which is, I have no doubt, necessary for the proper collection of taxes, but yet one which makes it clear that every possible opportunity should be taken to ensure that modern office methods are introduced into every section and not only into the central computer section in the Castle.
I remember during the course of the year suggesting to the Minister that the test for the purchase of office machinery that was adopted by his Department was not the right test, that the test whether it was possible for the office to get on without the machinery was the test which had been laid down perhaps many years ago, but that the test should be not whether it is possible for the office to get on without the machinery but whether it could be more efficiently run with the machinery in question. One sees, going through governmental offices, from time to time, quite a considerable amount of manual totting and multiplication. That day is gone and should have been gone with the quill pen. It is an utter waste of time and the only result is that the people having to do it are imbued with a sense of frustration and the taxpayer on the other side waiting for it feels, and correctly so, that this is an antiquated procedure.
One can say that the most notable case of this is the Estate Duty Office. I also raised with the Minister at the time it appeared, from what I could ascertain, that the Estate Duty Office were very short of staff and that in consequence, the delays in the office were quite extraordinary and were adding to the feeling of frustration that existed, as well as losing considerable moneys to the Minister, because after the lodgment of the accounting affidavit, many delays which occur in the office every day mean that the Minister is losing the use of the money and of course interest cannot possibly be charged to the taxpayer. I understood also from the Budget Statement that we were to have about now a White Paper on TVA. Presumably this will be produced by the Revenue Commissioners, and again this is a matter which me might hear about under the heading of this Vote.
There have been complaints that the Revenue Commissioners have not made available to the taxpayers all the information, courtesy and reliefs to which the taxpayers are entitled. I want to put it on record that this is not my experience. One must expect naturally that a person who goes in to pay a tax bill which he does not think he should pay is probably not in the best of humour, but officials dealing with a person in that category must make allowances for the fact that none of us in any walk of life likes paying taxes.
First of all, I shall deal with the matter of Subhead D. The increase of £6,430 in this Subhead is accounted for mainly by two items. The first is the provision of £2,000 for the printing by the recess process of a commemorative stamp by a commercial firm. There is another provision of £2,200 for the reconditioning of a rotary letterpress machine and the replacement of certain parts. The balance is due to the provision for new engravings for the multi-commemorative stamp and other general increases in printing demands for 1968-69.
The Finance Bill will, I hope, be circulated fairly shortly. I believe that the understanding is that we will be taking it next week. The procedure we have in mind at the moment for dealing with the abolition of Schedule A and B tax is that the present Finance Bill will simply give statutory effect to the decision. Assessments will not be raised under Schedule A and B from next year onwards. Various tidyingsup will be necessary as a result and will be done, if possible, in a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill in the autumn and, if not, in next year's Finance Bill. The actual abolition in toto of Schedules A and B and the consequential amendments necessary is a very tedious business, involving the examination of countless statutory provisions. We would not be able to have the full job carried out and incorporated in this Finance Bill but we would hope that all these consequential provisions will be included in a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill later in the year.
Deputy Sweetman talked about the situation in regard to the computer. As he is aware, the Revenue Commissioners replaced the original computer with a new and much more powerful installation which was delivered during the autumn of last year and has been in operation for some time now. The original computer was taken out of use at the end of January of this year. Computer procedures are being extended to PAYE and to the annual preparation of certificates of tax-free allowances. Also the payroll of the Revenue Commissioners' staff is being automated. The result is that there have been teething troubles, and there still are unfortunately, although they are gradually being overcome. It is true to say that at the moment they are a great deal fewer than they were. I hope it will not be very long until the full benefits of this computerisation will be available to us, without any hitches or temporary sets-back.
I know there have been complaints about the staffing position in the Estate Duty Branch. As a result of queries raised here on a previous occasion, I called for a report on the position. That report has now been completed and is under consideration. It will probably mean a re-organisation of the work there and, I hope, the introduction of a great deal more expedition into it.
The final proofs of the proposed loose-leaf volume containing the Acts relating to death duties are now in the printers' hands and will, I hope, be available for the public within a couple of months at the latest. The White Paper on TVA is also at printing stage. Again this is a question of trying to get it out as quickly as possible and having the various corrections made at proof stage for final printing. We hope that will be very soon now.
May I ask the Minister two questions? Was the old computer given back to the makers on a trade-in basis or is it being used for some governmental service which does not require quite the same high pressure?
It went back to the makers.
I see. Secondly, may I urge the Minister very strongly to bring in the tidying-up procedure which he referred to in relation to Schedule A and B by means of a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill and not leave it until the Finance Bill next year, by which time the 5th April will have come and gone? I accept that it would be an impossible job to do it in this Finance Bill.
