I beg to move Section 6. This is a stormy section, and possibly may prove to be one. I have already spoken at some length upon it, and I now formally move it.
FINANCE BILL. - COMMITTEE STAGE RESUMED.
(SECTION 6).
(1) Where any employed person has omitted to make payment of any income tax under Schedule D or E due and payable by him for any year, the Revenue Commissioners may give notice to the employer of such person at any time after a period of three months has elapsed since such income tax became due and payable, requiring such employer to deduct the amount of income tax so in arrear from any remuneration payable by him to such employed person.
(2) On receipt of such notice the employer shall deduct such sum or sums, not exceeding in the aggregate the total amount of income tax so in arrear, at such times, and in such manner, as the Revenue Commissioners may direct and shall forthwith pay over the amounts so deducted to the Accountant General of Revenue.
(3) If the employer refuses or neglects to pay over to the Accountant General of Revenue any such sum or sums within the time specified in such notice, such employer shall be liable to pay such sum or sums as if the same had been duly assessed upon him, and proceedings for the recovery thereof may be taken in any manner prescribed by the Income Tax Act, 1918, including the issue by the Special Commissioners of their warrant to the Collector in whose Collection the business premises or property of the said employer are situated, requiring him to distrain the said employer by his goods and chattels, and failure on the part of the employer to deduct any such sum or sums from the employed person shall not be any bar to the recovery of such sum or sums by proceedings or distraint.
(4) Any employer who neglects or refuses to comply with the provisions of this section shall be liable to the penalty imposed by Section 107 of the Income Tax Act, 1918, upon a person who neglects or refuses to deliver a list, declaration or statement, and such penalty shall be recoverable without prejudice to any other remedy provided by the Income Tax Act, 1918, or this Act.
(5) Where the employer is a body of persons the provisions of Sub-sections 2 and 4 of Section 105 and the whole of Section 106 of the Income Tax Act, 1918, shall apply in relation to anything required to be done under this Act.
(6) Nothing in this Section shall affect the provisions of Rule 11, Schedule E, of the Income Tax Act, 1918, or of Rule 7, Schedule E, of the same Act, as amended by Section 18 (3) of the Finance Act, 1922.
(7) Any employer who pays over to the Accountant General or to the Collector in whose Collection his business premises or property are situated, any such sum of income tax as is required by any such notice from the Revenue Commissioners as aforesaid, shall be acquitted and discharged of so much money as is represented by such payment as if that sum of money had actually been paid as remuneration to the employed person.
I take it, as a matter of order, that it will be open to Deputies to discuss the section after the amendment has been disposed of, in case Deputy O'Brien's amendment to delete the section should not be carried?
Yes. I should point out that there are certain difficulties in connection with a motion to delete a section. If we take this amendment first, and it is not carried, we shall then have the other amendments on the paper. Subsequent discussion on the motion that the section stand part of the Bill will be identical with the discussion on the first amendment in the name of Deputy O'Brien. It will, therefore, be the same matter for the purpose of the Standing Orders.
On a point of order, may I suggest that I have a recollection that you ruled once before that to delete an entire section should go on the original substantive motion for and against, and not as an amendment. That is not to be observed in the present circumstances, I understand?
The Deputy desires to register his objection to the whole section, and if he fails to delete the section he will endeavour to amend it.
I take it there is a difference between an argument addressed to the desirability of deleting a section and an argument bearing upon criticism of the section as it stands, which would be proper after the deletion motion were rejected?
I beg to move my amendment to delete Section 6. We think that this is a new and a very objectionable principle, that is to say, to place the responsibility on employers of collecting this tax, which ought to be the duty of the State and its officers. The Government will surely agree that there are sufficient causes of friction between employers and workers already, without adding a fresh one. Undoubtedly this section will give rise to a good deal of friction and irritation, and, as such, we think it is not justified. Possibly some case may be put up for it because of the very large amount of outstanding arrears, but I would point out that, as proposed, it is a permanent arrangement, and the Government has given no indication that when the present position has been got over that it will not be continued. We think that it is a very undesirable proposition and is bound to lead to a good deal of trouble, and that whatever is involved in it the Government, through its officers, ought to shoulder the responsibility themselves. I accordingly move that this Section be deleted.
I desire to support the amendment that the Section be deleted. I think it would be agreed that there are not a large number of occasions on which, as things exist at present, the two sections generally known as employers and employees are in substantial agreement, and when such an occasion has been discovered I think it might be encouraged. It is matter of agreement between employers and employees that this Section would be against both their interests, inasmuch as it would be against the general interests of the continuance of employment and the continuance of constructive industry. It is well known that occasions are frequently arising as between employers and employed only a very small proportion of which comes into the unfortunate state either of a lock-out on the one hand or a strike on the other. A large number of cases arise that are only very narrowly averted from that unfortunate outcome, but they are averted only by a reduction of friction between the two sections, whose interests may strictly be regarded from the national point of view as being one, but are not always so regarded. Anything that might, therefore, tend to increase that friction would tend normally and naturally to increase the percentage of disputes that would go further than ordinary discussion, and which would lead to a stoppage of work. I think it has been publicly asserted on behalf of both sides, and surely it is obvious from the logic of the circumstances, that this Section, if carried, would cause such an increase of friction, and such an increase of friction would in its turn tend to cause a larger proportion of stoppages of work than would ordinarily occur or that might be expected to occur in disputes that arise as between employers and employed. I think it would be very undesirable that this Section should be pressed. It is true that there are a large number of payments due in respect of Income Tax, and I think we may take it that the whole of the Dáil is in agreement that those moneys should be collected, and that persons who owe money to the State shall be required to pay that money to the State. On that there is no disagreement whatever, and whatever steps the Minister for Finance may find it necessary to take to cause that collection should be taken by him and I have no doubt that he would be supported by the Dáil in whatever he did in the matter.
But that is quite a different thing from causing employers to become tax collectors on behalf of the State, and thus to acquire a certain extra power over their employed persons than they might reasonably expect, or than the employed persons might reasonably expect from them. Employers are reluctant to act in that capacity. I do not think it would be suggested that employers are reluctant because they think that the State should not have the money, but simply because they do definitely fear, and have expressed that fear, that if they are to be put into the position they are now being put into by this Bill conditions of friction would necessarily arise. Conditions of friction might arise under circumstances quite unjust to the employed person apart from the general circumstances of the case. When this matter was before the Dáil previously, in the Financial Resolution to that effect, Deputy Magennis referred to them. There are employed persons, I do not suppose there are a very large number, but there are a few, in that privileged position who receive income irrespective of their employment, that is to say that they have incomes derivable from more than one source, and one of those sources happens to be their employment in a particular firm. Such an employed person might have reasonable cause to be argued against the State in respect of reductions due over the whole sphere of Income Tax by that person to the State, and the State, by this Section, is put into the position of short-circuiting that entire case over a wide ambit by compelling the employer to collect from that person in respect of one of several sources of income from which Income Tax is due. That would be unjust to the employee, and it would be unjust to the employer. It would be unjust to the employee because it would short-circuit him in that respect, and it would be unjust to the employer because it would put him in a position of preponderance over the employee, where he should not reasonably be put. That is an instance of it, but the general case is the larger and the more important one. As society is at present constituted—we all deplore the fact that it is so—friction is constantly recurring. It should be the business of the Legislature, and of the Executive Council on behalf of the Legislature to reduce that friction to its minimum, and not to do anything that might increase it. It is because this Section will tend to increase it that I think the Section ought to be deleted. and that the Minister for Finance ought to use other avenues for the collection of what is justly due to the State rather than the means presented by the Section which is now under discussion.
I support the amendment very cordially, and I think the Minister for Finance himself will agree that there is no greater need at the present moment than to get the people to look upon the State as their State, to look upon it with respect and affection. Now, I can imagine no provision more clearly destined to have the opposite effect than the proposal introduced by the Minister. This proposal would be magnificient if we were living in primitive Arcadian times. when, let us say, we might look on the employer as the father of the family and make him responsible for the employees as his children, but we are a very long way from that, and the employer resents, and properly resents, being put in that position, and the employee, I think, resents it even more. The Minister told us that this Clause was introduced in the interests of the State. I sometimes wonder what that word State means. Surely nine-tenths of the persons composing the State are either employers or employees. Now, the employers and employees are pretty well unanimous in holding that this provision is iniquitous, and should not go into the Finance Bill. Therefore the State—nine-tenths of the State— holds that this proviso, which is supposed to be in the interests of the State, is highly detrimental to the interests of the State. If you once introduce a principle of this kind there is no reason whatever why you should stop here. None. The next thing will be a proposal by the Postmaster-General that the employers should collect the telephone bills of the employees. Why not? It is just as reasonable. And if the telephone bills, why not the rates? And if the rates, why not the tailor's bill, the grocer's bill, and the doctor's account? I fail to understand the strange distinction that is sought to be drawn between the debt due to what is called the State and the debt equally due, and equally properly payable, to somebody else. As a matter of fact, the State is far more amply protected than any other entity in the collection of debts. It has priority everywhere, whether in bankruptcy or executions or other means of redress. It has ample means of priority, and it does not need any further priority, least of all such a priority as would cause such a friction as the proposal put forward by the Minister. One was under the impression that certain Government officials were actually paid Government money to collect the taxes. I suppose that is still the case. These gentlemen, who are paid to collect the taxes, and whose duty, if you please, is to be carried out by the employers, are still to continue to draw their pay for the work that is going to be done by somebody else, for I do not hear any suggestion that the tax collectors are to cease to receive the pay they have received hitherto or that their remuneration is to be in any way reduced. What makes this section much worse is the fact that it is succeeded by Section 7, which provides that when, let us say, Mr. A.B. in Dame Street has a typist, Miss C.D., who has not paid her Income Tax and who refuses to pay it, the Income Tax authorities will be entitled to call in the military authorities, and one can see visions of Dame Street held up by battalions and brigades from Portobello. If there is resistance, as there well might be, on the part of the indignant employer and employee, I suppose we will have a repetition of O'Connell Street and the Four Courts. That is the kind of thing that this preposterous proposal is going to lead to, and this, if you please, is done in the interests of the State, the State being no more nor less than the employers and employees, who rigidly object to every line of this clause.
Deputy Gavan Duffy is puzzled to know what the State is. I hope to answer the question, and to show the fallacy involved in his argument that nine-tenths of the State is opposed to the insertion of this Section in this Bill. He says that nine-tenths of the citizens are either employers or employees, and that they do not like the insertion of this Section. I can well believe that quite a considerable number of employed persons do not like the insertion of this Section. I can understand also that certain employers would object to the insertion of this Section, and yet that does not prove or go any degree at all towards proving that nine-tenths of the State, to use the Deputy's peculiar expression, is opposed to this Section. The State can scarcely be divided into tenths in that way, inasmuch as it is, in my view at any rate, the collective interests of the people, and there is in the mind of every citizen, or almost every citizen—because I think very few citizens are devoid of it—the eternal pull between the selfish interests which would dictate to him always to do the thing that pleases him best and to leave undone the things that do not please him—there is always the pull between that and his duty as a gregarious animal as a member of the community, the pull between his selfish interests and the common weal.
It is the selfish interest, and the selfish interest only, that is behind the objection to this Section both in the minds of the employer and the employed. It is the pull of the individual against the State, and his refusal to do anything that would incur, or seem to incur, even in the minds of the most stupid and short-sighted, any odium for the good of the State. That is what is present in the mind of the employer; what is present in the mind of the employee is a pious hope that he will be able to evade his liabilities to the State, which, in effect, mean his liabilities to his fellow-citizens. Nine-tenths of the State! We get that from the one Deputy in the Dáil that I consider capable of coining such an expression. There are no tenths to the State. It is the common good, and when we hear programmes with which we all mentally sympathise put up from the Labour Benches we are surprised that we should get from those same Benches opposition to clauses that are inserted to ensure that all the citizens will bear their share in putting up the revenue that will enable some, if not all, of those programmes to be put into practical operation. There is the selfish pull of the individual: "How can I cheat the State?" There is the selfish pull of the employer: "Why should I do this for the State?" The individual should not cheat the State, because man does not live for himself alone. The employer should be prepared to incur even a little odium from the short-sighted and the superficial-minded, because the interests of the State are the interests of his neighbours, and because what he is asked to do is in effect a form of fraternal charity. There is nothing extraordinary about it. The State demands that all citizens bear their proportion in the cost of the total administration of public services throughout the coming year. If any citizens, or any body of citizens, are enabled to evade or elude that, then they throw an undue burden on the remainder. They pick someone's pocket, and we are asking for this machinery to ensure that they will not be able to pick their neighbours' pockets. When it has been ascertained that a certain citizen's proportion of the total cost of the country's administration is a certain sum, we ask that in the event of his failure or refusal to pay that we should be enabled to attach his salary to that amount.
You do that already.
His salary?
Mr. O'HIGGINS
His salary, his income. If this is refused, it is refused because of sympathy in the minds of Deputies with the desire to cheat the State——
SEVERAL DEPUTIES
No, no.
That is not so.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
Or else because of sympathy in the minds of Deputies with the refusal to help the State——
No, no.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
In the important task of collecting revenue.
Not a bit.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
The task of collecting revenue is important. Deputies get up, particularly when we are getting near election times, and they propound lovely schemes of public work. "Why should not the Government do this, and why should not the Government do that?"
Fourteen Bills.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
We hear it said: "The Government are already several months in office and they have not yet drained the Barrow. Look at the condition of our roads. What price housing?" For all this money is necessary. We have not yet met the philanthropic labourer who works merely for the common good, and who says: "You need not mind my wages, boss." The money is necessary, and if the money is to come in in full, as it should come in—and it will have to come in much better now than it came into the foreign administration in the past—if we are to build up the country and to do away with the American wake as an institution, and if our land is not going to be a mere breeding ground for foreign countries, then the money will have to come in. It should be the common mind of this Dáil to close every loophole and to show—I will not say the minimum sympathy—no sympathy with the man who would be out to evade his proper liabilities. It is not unfair and it is not unjust to call upon employers to assist in closing that kind of loophole, and the last group in this Dáil that any objection should come from to that Section should be the group opposite.
I think I read occasionally a quotation from a certain French King who said "I am the State." I think he was more correct in his definition, he was nearer to accuracy, than either Deputy Gavan Duffy or the Minister for Home Affairs. Without going into any examination of that very long, controversial question of what is the State we know, as a matter of fact, that that organisation of Government which uses Executive power to carry out what it conceives to be the law very often becomes a tyrannical body, and still claims to be the State speaking on behalf of the people. It is natural in organisms to try to gather to themselves increased power. The State, the Executive authority, has to submit to criticism for the purpose of preventing that aggrandisement of power. This proposition is to make it easy for this State to collect taxes in a way which we contend is unjust and fraught with danger. We are not approaching this matter at all from any selfish or interested motives or from the point of view of any section. If you take that from me, I give it to you quite sincerely. It is not with a view to the present emergency we are thinking. It is the danger that is embodied in this principle. The argument of the Minister for Home Affairs would just as fittingly operate if he were defending commandeering by the State, if he were defending the going into houses by means of military or police and taking goods or money, or going into banks and taking goods or money. All the arguments that he has used would fit that operation just as well as it fits this operation. I dare say the argument we are using in this matter would more properly or, shall I say, more expectedly, come from representatives of large employers or from the chairmen of public bodies rather than from our Benches. If the Minister can conceive it as possible, when we speak of our point of view and when we speak of our position as representatives of Labour, it is not simply that we claim to look after Labour interests in the narrow sense, but that we want to look upon the social and political life from the point of view of the man who works. It is from that point of view that we look upon the social and political life, and that is why we are calling ourselves Labour men. Taking that point of view, we have a proposition that the debt due to the State for Income Tax or any other tax is not to be collectable, not to be enforceable, by the ordinary process which the law at present enables you to bring into operation but to go between two citizens having an entirely different relationship as apart from that of State and citizen—two citizens with a peculiar relationship. You go to one and you say, "You must collect a debt from the other on our account." That is a very dangerous innovation. It is a permanent proposition. It is, as Deputy O'Brien has pointed out, not to apply to debts incurred through recent causes, but to be a continuous provision for the collection of Income Tax. There is to come between these two types of citizens having a peculiar economic relationship this organisation called the State. The organ of Government and of society in this country called the State is to come in and say between those two citizens, "We are going to enter a cleavage, we are going to divide you, because we are going to make one act as our agent against the other." That is the proposition, or at least that is the effect of the proposition. But, take this clause and connect it, as it must be connected, with the next, and see where you are going. You are going to make this employer not only responsible for collecting the debt from the employee, but you are going to make him bear all the responsibility of not having paid. You are going to punish him for the offence against the State of a third person. I cannot understand any body of men who have thought over this principle for five minutes and professed to speak from the point of view of democratic government, and having in view, I hope, that democratic government will persist, I cannot understand how any body of men having those views will introduce a proposition of this kind. It is not the sort of thing that is going to stop at this operation. It is so easy to reduce the cost of collection of taxes by imposing the obligation upon one set of citizens to act as collectors of these taxes that in a desire for economy the next Ministry, if not this, will say "We will cut down the expenses of collection, and we will make the employers our debt collectors," and it may be developed in many directions. I am confident that the Law Advisers can point to precedent, and they will say that this is only an enlargement of precedent. That is my case. This is only the beginning of further action of the same kind—that the State is coming in between its citizens to divide them and bring one section in opposition to the other, because it is using one section as its agent against the supposed interests of the debtor. I want to repeat that it is not from the point of view of any section, employer or employed, that I am opposing this clause in the way I am. I believe it is a bad principle to develop. I believe it ought not to be embodied in this Bill, that it is impolitic, and is liable to extension and, because of that, to break up any hopes of that common recognition of what you might call a common life with an organised governing body undertaking executive duties of that common opinion and will. I believe it is a bad principle, and it is on the ground of principle that I oppose this section.
Before the Minister for Finance should reply I am moved to one or two brief comments by reason of what the Minister for Home Affairs has said. This is, after all, a Parliament, and I will not follow him into the scholastic avenues in which he has wandered. I merely remind him that there was a German philosopher named Hagen, and he is a good disciple of that philosopher. There are other disciples in Ireland to-day. One of them was referred to in the Dáil yesterday— one who, I believe, was guilty of the classic utterance that when he wished to find out what the people thought he looked into his own heart. I would hardly expect to find the Minister for Home Affairs in that distinguished company, but one never knows what to expect if one lives long enough. The objection to this clause, in my mind and, I believe, in the minds of the majority of the people of this country, is not at all on the grounds that he has put it. It is claimed if a certain citizen be found owing money to the State—let me avoid that word "State"—if the money is owing to the common good and advantage of the people, that we are objecting to the collection of that money. That is not the case; no one is objecting to the collection of that money. The Minister for Home Affairs has said that it may be necessary to attach a certain person's salary. It may be necessary that it should be attached, and the money owing to the common good must be collected. On that ground I am in agreement with him. I watched him, to use a phrase I have used before, knocking over the skittles in his alley with the greatest delight, because it was not the alley in which I put up my skittles. I say it may be necessary to attach that salary and collect that money, and if found necessary the necessity must be observed and carried out; but what is the best way of doing it? The best way of doing it is surely not by creating extra friction as between citizens and citizens, as we know too well there are abundant causes of friction between them. This is a question that should be very earnestly considered in respect of this clause. We know that there are many causes of friction between employers and employed persons. Is it going to minimise these causes of friction if one type of citizen is going to be made the State's unpaid agent for the collection of moneys owing to the State by others? If this Section is going to be put into operation we know only too unfortunately that there are strikes that have occurred, strikes that may occur, simply because some little cause of friction has occurred between the two sides. If we increase these causes of friction we are going to increase the stoppage of productive work. It is not, as the Minister has said erroneously, as he will admit himself on mature reflection, on account of the collection of money owing to the Treasury that we object. If that money be owing, let the State collect it, if necessary, by the most rigorous means, but let it collect it by its own proper person. Do not let employers be made collectors against employed persons, and so make employees nurse an extra grievance that will surely mature and will inevitably lead to a stoppage of work.
I agree with the righteousness of it, and I believe if the common good of the country requires me to proceed on a certain action injurious to me and repugnant to me, as to other citizens, it is my duty to do it, but it might be an exceeding unwise thing to do, and it is because of its unwisdom that I am protesting against it. I can understand a case being made against it on the question of principle. I can understand its being urged that it is against principle that the State should proceed in this way. I am not putting forward a case in that way from my point of view. I am putting forward the case that it is unwisdom to proceed in that way. The people of Ireland might require all employers with justice to collect money from employed persons; they might equally require that employed persons should inspect the books of employers and find out exactly what those employers did really owe.
And earn.
That proposal has not yet been put forward. I suppose an admirable precedent has been furnished by the Executive Council for any Executive Council that may be provided from the other side of the Dáil. If that proposal were put forward I would oppose it. To ask employed persons to inspect employers' books to find out what they owe or to use employers to find what should be owing from employed persons may be right, may be abstractly just, but I do urge it is definitely unwise in view of the circumstances that cause friction and are constantly recurring. It is the duty of the State to remove these causes of friction. and to prevent friction and the continuity of friction in the public interest rather than help friction by throwing into the exceedingly delicate machinery these extra sands of friction that may hold it up in the near future.
We have not had an answer to the question the whole Committee desires to have answered, and that is, why this drastic form of remedy is necessary. The Minister for Home Affairs gave us an eloquent defence of officialdom, and in the course of it he stated the necessity of collecting debts and taxes, and stated theories about the necessity of punishing fraud. We all agree with that. He simply begged the question. The State has ample remedies against its debtors. It comes before every other creditor. As the Minister for Finance knows, it has in this matter power to go before a Court and to recover no less than £50 penalty against the defaulter, or if it prefers to go before the Commissioners it can treble the duty. These are drastic powers.
Will the Minister tell us why is it that something more drastic is required?
He will.
Sub-section 4 of Section 6 provides that your employee is to be liable to a fine of £50, but the employer also is to be liable to a fine of £50, so the State has ample remedies, and we want some good and cogent reason why remedies which are sufficient in other countries, in England, Wales and Scotland, are insufficient in Saorstát Eireann.
It is quite evident that all the opposition we have heard to this Clause is nothing but the backwash of an old tradition which was a sound tradition in this country, a tradition of opposition to government which was not the people's Government. It arises from the fact that a number of us, perhaps to some extent all of us, have not suddenly been able to escape from the notion that there is an essential opposition between the Government and the people. We have heard Deputies on the Benches opposite speaking of the Government here as at least hypothetically tyrannical.
Every Government is the same.
That implies that when a Government has to do, as every Government has to do, things which are necessarily disagreeable in the public interest, it does them with a certain amount of enjoyment and zest. Notwithstanding the amount of force that is put into suggestions of that kind, I do not think that Deputies on any side or quarter of the Dáil will really persuade those of us who are sitting here to regard ourselves as public enemies or to look upon ourselves as either successful or unsuccessful tyrants. Really this is all part of that old tradition of being "agin the Government," and of the notion that the Government is essentially against the people. An amount of imagination has been imported into this which would belong more properly to the realms of fiction. It is altogether separate from the realm of fact. The friction spoken of in the skittles that Deputy Figgis put up in his own alley, is altogether imaginary, Income Tax is at present deducted from all Civil Servants, without exception, beforehand. We have never heard of this friction in the case of Civil Servants.
Have you not?
No. I was a Civil Servant myself for over 20 years, and I never heard of any friction on the part of Civil Servants with regard to the deduction of Income Tax at all comparable with what may be heard passing between the ordinary outside taxpayer and the collector of Income Tax.
Is that not part of the Civil Servant's contract?
If I am to answer that interruption, it simply means that the arrangement has begun and has worked successfully so far back that every Civil Servant has walked into it. It means nothing more than that when a new arrangement of this kind is sufficiently long in operation it would also be a part of every employee's contract. I venture to say if imagination were carried a few stages forward it would be found that this imaginary friction would not arise, and that no one would feel that there was that poking intervention of the tyrant on the Government benches between employer and employee. The employee will be absolutely unconscious of any such intervention between him and his employer or any interference on the part of what we call the Government, on the part of the State, in these delicate relations that exist between employer and employee. Deputy Johnson says that this intervention of the State, or, shall we say, of the Government, in matters of this kind between parties to a permanent contract on one side and the other is new and unprecedented. It is nothing of the kind.
I think that is a misquotation. I do not think I said that. I said it was a development out of a bad principle.
I understood the other meaning to be conveyed, but, at all events, it is sufficient to point out that there is nothing new about it. Every railway company at present acts the part of collector of Income Tax.
Under the British Government.
It will act it under this Free State Government, under this free Government of a free country, and no proposal to the contrary has yet come before us or been suggested.
That is not so in the case of some companies.
They must be very exceptional companies. I think all the large companies do, and various other companies, besides railway companies, collect the Income Tax and pay it over to the Government and pay the dividends net to the persons entitled to receive them. That has worked out without any friction. Shareholders are extremely vocal people when they turn up at meetings of railway companies or similar companies, and not a word has been heard of indignation against this process of Income Tax being collected as it is collected by these companies and handed over to the State. So that the principle is not a new one. A railway company is really a private, at least a proprietorial concern, and primarily it is not a part of its duties to collect Income Tax, but it does it, and the scheme, such as it is, works without friction and there is no indignation created between the parties. At first every new proposal creates a certain amount of friction, a certain amount of indignation by the very fact of its being new. If it were in existence for a certain time people would come to realise that it was the most natural thing possible, especially if we get away from these views about the State and all that and put it on another plane as ensuring the discharge of a social duty. There is no grievance; it is not pretended there is any grievance, that there is any injustice done in this, and the Minister for Home Affairs has, I think, put the thing mildly. The case that he put would be self-evident to every one of us here, if it were not, as I have already said, that the chains are still clinging to us to some extent, and we are unable to get away from the conception of people resisting an alien Government, an alien law, an alien administration, an alien authority, collecting taxes. At present we have not an alien Government and we have not an alien tax collector. The tax collector is really the servant and the agent of the man from whom he collects taxes. He is really his servant and his agent, and some of the quarters from which we have heard opposition to this proposal, especially the principles on which the opposition is based, surprised me. I should have thought that from these very quarters we should have heard the very opposite principle stated, that the great necessity in our country, and among our people at the present day, would be, as has been more than once insisted on in this Assembly, to insist on the fullest realisation on the part of every citizen of his duty to be rendered to his fellow-citizens through the machinery of government which he himself has set up and which he has the power to change.
It is quite evident from what we heard in the Dáil to-day, and also from time to time, that there are some members, including the Minister for Home Affairs, who would like the public to understand that the only section of the Irish people who are really liable, and who actually pay Income Tax, are either farmers, landlords or publicans. I contend that the real Income Tax payers are the unfortunate workers on a miserable pittance or salary, whichever you like, who have to purchase everything that keeps them and their dependents alive, including clothing. In purchasing the necessaries of life these people pay for the profiteering and the Income Tax of the producer and the middleman. I have no desire personally at any rate to support the deletion of any such clause as this from the Bill because of any desire to enable people to shirk their responsibilities to the State, but I do contend that it is unfair for the Government to insert any clause which will enable a third party to be the deciding factor between what in the ordinary course should be a responsibility between the individual and the State. I know that considerable friction has taken place regarding the payment of Income Tax in the past, and I happen to be a member of the Trade Union, and was a representative on many occasions for that Union, which caters for the salaried staff on the railways. There has been considerable friction and strife caused for many years past between the individual salaried official on the railways and the pay clerk or staff clerk or whatever responsible official acts in this matter on behalf of the railway companies. The friction principally arose because of the arbitrary manner in which Income Tax is assessed and because, in nine-tenths of the cases, there are what are undoubtedly unfair assessments. We will take the case of an individual who, for instance, gets married a month after the beginning of the financial year. No one in the Dáil will deny but that anybody who takes that risk and responsibility is entitled to some compensation. The Government, whether it be the British or the Free State Government, has made provision for compensation in such a case. If the individual happens to get married one month or three months after the beginning of the financial period he is assessed for the remainder of the financial year as if he had not got married, and he does not get the benefit of the compensation to which all agree he is entitled until about 12 or 13 months afterwards. I cite that as one of the unfair cases where the assessment is made on a wrong basis, and where there has been no provision made to deal with the matter. Now, I contend that the employer has placed upon him a responsibility which is very undesirable, and he is unable to rectify what is undoubtedly a grievance. If the Government are prepared to go the whole hog in this matter and collect Income Tax from a section of the community which many believe do not pay a fair share—I refer to the publicans, who, we are told, and I cannot prove it, are making tremendous profits through the distribution of porter and whiskey—why not compel Guinness and Son, John Jameson or Johnnie Walker to collect the correct amount, as they know what the correct amount would be, from publicans who distribute their porter and whiskey? The Minister for Education made a point with which I disagree. He stated that the British Government, which is true, and also the Irish Government, have been collecting Income Tax from railway officials or shareholders, I could not tell you which——
Shareholders.
The statement was that the railway companies have been collecting Income Tax from their employees.
I do know that in one or two of the big companies whose officials, in the ordinary course, would pay Income Tax the companies are not doing so. I have seen a copy of a circular where the railway companies addressed these officials in this way. They said they had been in communication with the British Government and the Irish Free State Government, regarding the collection of Income Tax since the beginning of the financial year, and as a result of no satisfactory replies being given by one or other of these Governments or any Department of these Governments, they had decided not to proceed any further with the collection of Income Tax. That is one case where I have actually seen the circular myself that any Income Tax collected since April this year would be refunded in the pay sheets of the particular company or companies to which I refer.
The Minister for Home Affairs said, and perhaps rightly, that people who shirked the paying of Income Tax for the upkeep of the necessary work of the State were picking their neighbours' pockets. I do not think that anything in the clause which the Government has inserted in the Bill will remove that idea from the mind of the Minister himself, or that there is anything in the clause which would be more effective in dealing with such people than the machinery which the Government has itself at its disposal for dealing with such people. I do not think that a third party who has actually no interest in a matter of this kind should be made a tax-gatherer for the State. There is, and will be, under a scheme of this kind a good deal of duplication of clerical work. That duplication would be removed if this clause was removed from the Bill, and the responsibility would then rest upon the individual to discharge his obligation to the State, and if he is not doing such the State will have the necessary machinery to compel him to do so. I look forward, in connection with the laws that are going to be made, in this or any other Parliament, or by any other Executive Council that may succeed the present one—I look forward to every law so made extending, as far as possible, the privilege of carrying out that law, to all sections, and as far as possible, to every citizen within the State; but this is an upsetting kind of policy. I oppose this Clause, because of the friction I know it has created in the past. I have no doubt some people imagine that simply because the Irish Government is transferring to green paper a law that existed on red, white and blue paper that is going to be a further inducement to the individual who is to be put to this inconvenience. But it will prove no special inducement simply because the Order is on green paper compared with the British paper that it was on hiterto. The inducement to him to discharge his obligation in this respect will be no greater than if the State were simply dealing with the individual himself.
I think this is a purely business matter, and it would be well for us to come down to the actual details of the question. I have met people from time to time who are opposed to the Government on many matters, and yet support the Government on general lines. But I must say in speaking to persons affected by this clause, if it is carried, I have found more unanimity against it than I ever thought would be shown against any Government proposition. The argument advanced by the Minister for Education that the opposition to this clause is the traditional one of being "agin the Government" in any circumstances, cannot be the fact with persons most vehemently opposed to this. Employers that have recognised the present laws and the laws of the British Government formerly have recognised this Government and recognised their regulations. Now, personally I have a slight experience in this matter. As one of those who refused absolutely to pay Income Tax during the British Government regime I want to say—and the Minister for Finance will probably be glad to hear it—that I have paid Income Tax to the Irish Government.
Hear, hear.
I have filled up every form required under the Companies' Act. The Company I am connected with has paid its Income Tax to the Irish Government, but I am perfectly certain that members of that company, as the members of every other company concerned—companies that will pay a thousand times more Income Tax than ours—are absolutely opposed to collecting Income Tax for the Government from the persons they employ. The general principle of Income Tax is collection at the source, but the source, in the case of payment of wages or salaries to individuals, is not a joint fund of a company or of an employer. The source is really the individual himself, and there is no analogy whatever with the payment of a dividend paid by a company. In that case the company is the individual that, according to law, is liable for the payment of the Income Tax out of the joint funds of the company; that happens in actual practice. You may have an employer, whether a company or an individual, and all that can happen is that out of the joint funds of the company or employer, out of the profits the tax is paid. In that sense I am rather surprised that the Labour people are opposing it.
Now, the justice of the case, I think, is, and it should be carried out in law, that the individual himself must be made responsible. It is the debt of the individual to the Government and to the State. It is not the debt of the company, for instance, or of the employer in this case. The company has discharged its own liability; it is the debt of the person to whom salary or wages are paid, and the Government has plenty of means to make the individual pay that debt to the State. It seems to be an injustice on general principles to make the employer responsible for a particular debt to the State and not the person who owes it, and whose salary is an individual salary. This is a tax upon the individual, and the source of the tax is the individual in this case. I know that persons who themselves have discharged their obligations as they considered them right and just and honest to the Irish Government—and some previously were loyal to the British Government, and considered it was honest to pay Income Tax to that Government when it ruled in this country— while they all the time discharged their duty honestly as they thought to whatever Government was in power, and have discharged their duty to the Irish Government even for arrears which some of them may have been liable for in the past few years are now thoroughly opposed to taking on this burden. They think it quite unfair to put it upon them. There is no dishonesty, and it is not the tradition of being "agin" the Government. It is that they feel that they are not responsible, and that they should not be made liable, and that it is unjust on the part of the Government to make them pay a tax for somebody else.
I am quite amazed at the attitude taken up by Deputy Darrell Figgis in this matter. He displays such a sensitivity of soul as makes us fear that he is about to withdraw from public life altogether. The Sybarite who was conscious of the crumpled rose leaf far far below his bed was as nothing compared with the sensitive shrinking of Deputy Figgis lest some employee should be hurt, and his good relations with his employer disturbed because the employer is asked to give his aid to the State to save it expense to recover a public debt. The last speaker does not, it seems to me, bear in mind what the words of this section are. It does not, so far as I understand it, propose that anyone but the individual recipient of income is to be made primarily responsible for the Income Tax to which that income is subject. Sub-section 3 says that if any employed person omits to make payment of any Income Tax, or if any employer refuses or neglects to pay over, then this machinery is to be put into operation. Every time that Deputy Johnson enunciates great principles, I find myself in absolute agreement with him. I have done battle side by side with him, and I hope shall do so again if the necessity arises, against attempts to extend departmental interference with administration, to prevent that natural tendency, as he appropriately described it, that exhibits itself in every Government to swell its powers; but let me remind Deputy Johnson there is a natural tendency on the part of the subject to be afraid that the State is trying to usurp, and while the one tendency is unhealthy, so is the other. The Minister for Education anticipated what I attempted on two occasions to say. He expressed this in the popular phrase of being "agin' the Government." What, I take it, he intended by that was this: Fear on the part of the subject that the Ministry is attempting to encroach upon what are the privileges of the individual; and it is no doubt the function of a Parliamentary body like this to keep a close and vigilant eye upon the movements of Ministers, lest they should succumb to the temptations that beset Ministers. But, in this case, I am free to confess that while I have always, so far as my little powers extend, been vigilant in this sense, I see nothing here to be afraid of. I receive, I only wish I received more, dividends from which the secretary of the company has already deducted the current rate of Income Tax. I know beforehand that he is going to do that. He informs me in cold print that he has done it, and the same operation has been performed upon every other shareholder's dividends. Now, what is the difference between this second remove of going to the source of the individual's income, as proposed by the Bill, and this which is the common practice of companies? Deputy de Roiste, who spoke before me, professes to see a difference. My employer pays me for certain services which he is foolish enough to believe I have rendered. That is my source of income. The State proposes to relieve me of a fraction of that. I refuse to pay it, or I neglect to pay. There are all sorts of remedies, Deputy Gavan Duffy says, which the State can put in force. But here is one which is the easiest and the cheapest to exercise— namely, to call upon the employer to deduct it. That is deducting it at the source. Deputy Darrell Figgis is frightfully alarmed that we are actually initiating some sort of labour trouble or social revolution if this is had recourse to, because it will create friction. It would create friction if the employer did it spontaneously, of his own motion, but how can any reasonable man entertain a feeling of animosity, or opposition, to his employer when he is fully aware that the employer is carrying out a legal obligation, an obligation imposed upon him by Act of Parliament? If there is to be any animosity it would be against the Ministers and against the administration that passed this Act, but certainly not against the employers. I was very much disappointed at Deputy Figgis taking up this position to-day, because I felt it would weaken his influence with Deputies afterwards when he came to advocate policies and schemes for which I wanted his assistance. I am afraid it will damage his prestige in the Dáil, and that is the reason why I rose to speak upon the matter.
I think I am the only Deputy in the Dáil that objected to this Clause in the beginning, but I am not going to object to it now. I must say that the arguments I heard to-day compel me almost not to object. At the same time, I do not agree with the Minister for Home Affairs when he says that the opposition coming from the employers is really an endeavour to prevent the State collecting the taxes. The real reason why the employers object is, that it imposes upon them an irritating duty entailing additional work, and further, because it compels them to do work for which another man is employed. I heard a lot about the working man and the taxes he will have to pay. My only regret is that the working man in Ireland, as far as I can see, will never get sufficient wages to oblige him to pay Income Tax. It occurs to me that the ordinary working man would need to have a wage of about £10 a week before his income would be taxable to the extent of £20 or £22 a year. That, in my opinion, knocks the whole thing on the head. I wish every working man had £10 a week. The country then would be flourishing, and everything would go on as well as we would wish to see it.
As I understand there will be a division on this, I want to make our position clear. I approach this matter with a clear conscience. The people that I and others like me employ, will not be liable for Income Tax, nor is there any chance of it. The people whom Deputy Johnson really represents are, of course, liable for Income Tax. This, I take it, is absolutely a city matter, and does not concern the country at all, and I think the reins are sufficiently tight about the average man in the country already. I have no hesitation in saying that 60 per cent. of the Income Tax collected in the country from the farming element was collected by fraud and bullying.
And it will again.
I know several cases. I have any amount of them in my mind. At the present time I have a complaint from a man of £40 or £50 valuation who has been bullied into paying Income Tax.
That has nothing to do with Section 6.
Well, perhaps not, but I think I have got in enough. Now, when I heard this advocacy for avoiding payment of Income Tax, and heard the source from which it came, I viewed it with considerable suspicion, and I think it will be great information to the country, to every workman in the country, to see these attempts to evade liability to the State, especially in view of where the advocacy comes from. It will set them thinking, and I think it will be a very wholesome line of thought. I hope it will have this effect, because I think it is time that it should have this effect on the country. I think the country has been too long fooled by the people who live in the city.
I think, sir, that there is some misconception on the part of certain Deputies as to the intention of the Government with regard to this particular Clause. We are endeavouring to make it easy for a class which has found itself unequal to paying this particular tax. A sum of something like £500,000 is outstanding at the present moment. We want to get that in at the least possible cost to the persons who paid, as soon as possible and as expeditiously, and we provide machinery that will enable them to pay this tax while scarcely realising that they are paying it. That is the thing that Deputy Figgis objects to, to divide, as it were, a sum of £6 into twelve monthly instalments for certain people who owe £6, and if they owe £72, and they have a considerable income, an income approaching 50 per cent. of what Deputy Figgis has, I am sure they would not feel such a small deduction as that. So that this is a provision to make that easy and make that possible. What are the alternatives to the Clause? That we go to court, that we get a decree against the person, that we get costs against him, and that we come down for £50, £60 or £70 in each case, payment at once. That is what Deputy Figgis recommends if he will not have this. Are these lawful debts to Caesar? The State says they are. Four million pounds have already been paid in Income Tax, and half a million is outstanding. That is little more than one-tenth, and I should say that Deputy Duffy, in the figures that he gave us, that nine-tenths of the people are opposed to this, is wrong. Nine-tenths are for it, and one-tenth is against it, that one-tenth that will not pay. That is the tenth that is against us. If he wanted any further proof I will tell him that something like a million and a half are on the register; another million and a half are composed of children, lunatics and others, so that, say, 50 per cent. of the people know nothing about this at all. Consequently, I do not know where he got his information, and he must be wrong with regard to that. There is an alternative open to an employee who objects to the deduction of this particular tax by his employer, and that is to pay it, and then he can snap his fingers at the employer. But the relations, I would inform the Deputy, are not by any means so strained between the employer and the employee. I have experience of them, and I know one as well as the other. I have had relations with both, and even though there is occasionally doubtful language used, as between one and the other, it never comes to the straining point, and I recommend the Deputy to read the Preface in which it is said, sursum corda.“You can lift up your hearts.” There is no danger between these two classes of people. At present railway companies, under the existing law, deduct this tax, Deputy Davin notwithstanding. Tenants deduct Income Tax from their rent, and mortgagors deduct Income Tax from their interest. I had, only this morning, a letter from an accounting officer of a Corporation in which he reminded me, as he had told me many times before, that it was his habit, as an accounting officer, to deduct each month one-twelfth of the sum due by the employees per year, and it was at the employees' request that he did it although it is provided for in the Act of Parliament, and it will be found in the Income Tax Act of 1918, Section 7, Subsections 1 and 2, so that there is nothing new about this.
It is being spread out, and it is being made available for an order to which it was not made available before in their own interests, and, incidentally, in the interests of the State. I suggest that we will get in the half million whether you give us the power or not. This is the easiest method of getting it, and I think the Deputy will admit that. Now, I do not know where the opposition comes from on the part of the employers, unless it was an entire misconception, that they were to be asked to assess, and make up the amount of Income Tax due. That is not the case; the Revenue Commissioners submit the bill, and it is arranged to convenience the people affected. Deputy Gavan Duffy overstated the case when he said they were liable to penalties. They are liable to penalties if they make a false return, but they are not liable for penalties if they do not pay, except for the cost of any proceedings that may take place. The two things are altogether different. This particular section, and others, will be necessary for some years, and, perhaps, for all time. One only needs to be informed that you have such power in order to make people pay.
Excuse me interrupting. On the point the Minister has raised, the Sub-section I have referred to, says:—"Any employer who neglects or refuses to comply with the provisions of this Section, shall be liable to the penalty imposed by Section 107 of the Income Tax Act, 1918, upon a person who refuses to deliver a list, declaration of statement."
Yes, that is a penalty imposed.
That is what I said.
I thought you were referring to the employee.
I said both.
The employee does not come into this except to have the deduction made. He does not suffer any inconvenience by these penal clauses. They affect him as regards an improper statement as to his income. If one were in what Deputy Lyons would call the unfortunate financial position of, say, Deputy Darrell Figgis or Deputy Professor Magennis, or Deputy Duffy, and that one receives dividends, you would receive them without Income Tax, and the idea with regard to that is the saving of expense. Is it good business to save the State expense? I believe it is, and that the State benefits by getting the maximum amount with the least possible cost. That is all that is attempted here. It is not too much to ask. It may be necessary in connection with other matters to introduce much the same principle, but if it be used on the same sound business principle as this particular Clause is used, and that it is for the benefit of the State, and that it does bring to heel those who are endeavouring to evade and escape their liabilities to the State, then there is justification for it. It is quite possible in days when one has learned so much of the political activities that can be operated against any Government that when it comes to pass that Deputy Johnson is sitting here with Deputy Darrell Figgis as his Finance Minister, he will appreciate why this particular Section was introduced, and he will say, "Now, no one will escape me, and the State will get its due, and we will get it at the least possible cost."
If we have a division on this motion, we cannot have another division later on, on the motion "that the Section stand part of the Bill." There can be only one division on what is really the same thing.
Question put: "That Section 6 be deleted."
The Dáil dividend. Tá, 15. Níl, 38.
Tá
|
Domhnall Ó Mocháin.Tomás de Nógla.Riobárd Ó Deaghaidh.Liam de Róiste.Tomás Mac Eoin.Seoirse Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh.Liam Ó Briain.Tomás Ó Conaill. |
Aodh Ó Cúlacháin.Liam Ó Daimhín.Seán Ó Laidhin.Cathal Ó Seanáin.Seán Buitléir.Domhnall Ó Muirgheasa.Domhnall Ó Ceallacháin. |
Níl
|
Liam T. Mac Cosgair.Donchadh Ó Guaire.Uáitéar Mac Cumhaill.Seán Ó Duinnín.Mícheál Ó hAonghusa.Séamus Breathnach.Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.Peadar Mac a' Bháird.Darghal Figes.Seán Ó Ruanaidh.Mícheál de Duram.Seán Mac Garaidh.Domhnell Mac Cárthaigh.Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.Earnán Altún.Liam Thrift.Eoin Mac Néill.Liam Mag Aonghusa.Pádraig Ó hÓgáin. |
Pádraic Ó Máille.Seosamh Ó Faoileacháin.Seoirse Mac Niocaill.Fionán Ó Loingsigh.Criostóir Ó Broin.Caoimhghin Ó hUigín.Próinsias Bulfin.Tomás Mac Artúir.Séamus Ó Dólain.Aindriu Ó Laimhín.Próinsias Mag Aonghusa.Eamon Ó Dúgáin.Peadar Ó hAodha.Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde.Liam Mac Sioghaird.Tomás Ó Domhnaill.Earnán de Blaghd.Uinseann de Faoite.Domhnall Ó Broin. |
Amendment declared lost.
My amendment is: "To delete in Section 6, Sub-section 1, the word `requiring,' and substitute the word `requesting.' " In view of what was said by the Minister for Finance, and others on his side, I am sure he will have no difficulty in accepting this amendment, which would leave it optional with employers whether or not they would fall in with this arrangement. According to what the Minister has said this is an arrangement as much in the interests of the employee as the employer, and all our fears that it would lead to friction between the two are unfounded. We are told it is a measure designed to help them both, that it will enable the employee to pay his Income Tax so easily that he will actually be unaware that he is paying it. He will have it painlessly extracted from him just as some dentists painlessly extract teeth. We are told that that being so there is no justification for the fears that there will be any friction, that no friction will arise and a mere request on the part of the Income Tax authorities to have this done will be immediately responded to. I am sure the Minister will accept the amendment readily.
I am afraid the amendment would defeat the object I have in view. I have in view making it easy for the employee, and this amendment would make it difficult for the employer. If the employer were requested he would probably say he found himself not in a position to comply with the request, and that the employee objected. In that case we would be presented with the necessity of going to a court and presenting the employee with a bill for the whole of the amount. We could not take it in instalments; we would have to take the whole amount or none, and a particular type of employee might escape altogether. There is that type Mr. Dooley referred to as "the bachelor." There are some bachelors who, when they put on their hats, thatch their house, and it would not be possible to collect goods from them, as they carry all their goods on their backs. In that case the State, that organism that everybody is interested in, would lose money. That would not be right, and in this case we will have to require the employer to deduct. Consequently, I regret I am unable to accept the amendment.
I would point out that there is nothing in this amendment that would prevent the State paying a commission to the employer who is requested to make these deductions; in fact, it might even be made profitable to the employer to make these deductions, under this amendment, so that in that case both the employer and the employee will be facilitated. Certainly, if one reads, or having heard, considers the arguments that were used against the previous motion, he will recognise how fitting they are in favour of this motion. There is not to be any attempt to divide the employer from the employee. The State is coming in to assist the debtor to pay his debt, and is going to use the machinery of the employer to facilitate the debtor to pay his debt. The amendment, therefore, is quite in keeping with the propositions that were put forward from the Minister and his supporters at the last debate. A request from the State has almost the force of law—almost, I said—and I am sure that, with a little inducement, in the shape of a commission on collections, most employers would be most pleased to assist in this good and holy work of collecting debts. I cannot think that the thirty-eight Deputies who voted on the last occasion are going to forget so readily the arguments that were used against the motion to delete. I am sure we can count upon the support of Deputy Magennis on this occasion, and one or two other Deputies who spoke, but did not vote, in the right way. I beg to support the amendment.
There is one question I would like to ask. That is, concerning the employees of County Councils, who were told in 1920 by the County Councils not to pay their Income Tax.
That may arise on the Section later, not on this amendment. This is a specific thing.
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá 14, Níl 33:
Tá
- Tomás de Nógla.
- Riobárd Ó Deaghaidh.
- Darghal Figes.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Seoirse Ghabháin Uí Dhubhthaigh.
- Liam Ó Briain.
- Tomás Ó Conaill.
- Aodh Ó Cúlacháin.
- Liam Ó Daimhín.
- Seán Ó Laidhin.
- Cathal ÓSeanáin.
- Seán Butléir.
- Domhnall Ó Muirgheasa.
- Domhnall Ó Ceallacháin.
Níl
- Liam T. Mac Cosgair.
- Donchadh Ó Guaire.
- Uáitéar Mac Cumhaill.
- Seán Ó Maolruaidh.
- Mícheál Ó hAonghusa.
- Séamus Breathnach.
- Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
- Peadar Mac a' Bháird.
- Míchéal de Duram.
- Seán Mac Garaidh.
- Mícheál de Stáineas.
- Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh.
- Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
- Earnán Altún.
- Liam Thrift.
- Eoin Mac Néill.
- Liam Mag Aonghusa.
- Seosamh Ó Faoileacháin.
- Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
- Fionán Ó Loingsigh.
- Criostóir Ó Broin.
- Caoimhghin Ó hUigín.
- Próinsias Bulfin.
- Tomás Mac Artúir.
- Séamus Ó Dóláin.
- Aindriú Ó Láimhín.
- Eamon Ó Dúgáin.
- Peadar Ó hAodha.
- Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhrighde.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Uinseann de Faoite.
- Domhnall Ó Broin.
Amendment declared lost.
Amendments 4 and 5 depended on the success of Amendment 3.
I call the Minister's attention to a technical point under Section 6. The first Sub-section speaks of a person omitting to make a payment of Income Tax due and payable and it provides for the lapse of a period of three months when a tax becomes due and payable before this remedy is enforced. I want the Minister to tell us, if he can, when a tax is payable. He will find in Section 157 of the Income Tax Act of 1918, a very extraordinary provision which states that a tax is payable on or before 1st January, or, where it is payable in two instalments, on or before the 1st January and the 1st July. The Dáil will notice that it is "on or before." The provision does not say that the tax is payable when the assessment is made or when upheld by the Commissioners. When the Minister is setting about enforcing his power under this Section it will be absolutely necessary to know at what date the tax becomes payable, because three months must elapse from that date. The matter is important from the point of view of the taxpayer for this reason— that under this Section as drafted the three months may run from the date of assessment. There is nothing to prevent the Commissioners from saying that the tax is payable on the date of assessment, independent of any question of appeal. I shall be told that in practice the Commissioners will not do that, and the tax is not collected before the 1st January. The point is you must have a clear date. Mere practice is not a good enough answer. I do not think that the Minister will be able to point to any Section which defines this date, except the vague words which I quoted. I call attention further to this. It is perfectly true that your collector does not get his warrant entitling him to distrain until the time of appeal has lapsed. Here you are importing a totally new procedure, and it is not the Collector but the Revenue Commissioner who gives notice to the employer. I suggest that there is no provision preventing the Commissioner from giving that notice before the appeal is heard. I would ask the Minister to look into this point, and, having looked into it, first to make the date when the tax is payable clear; and secondly, to make the three months run from the date when the appeal, if any, is heard. At all events put in words providing expressly that this operation cannot take place until the time for appeal has lapsed, or until the appeal has been heard.
The tax may be paid before the 1st January, but it is not due and payable until the 1st January.
Why not?
When I say that the tax may be paid before the 1st January, we do not refuse money from anybody, and he may pay it any time he likes, but we cannot collect in law until after the 1st January. The tax is not due or payable in any sense until the appeal is heard and determined.
Where did the Minister get that from? He will not find that in any Act. Revenue Commissioners are given discretion.
Question:"That Section 6 stand part of the Bill," put and declared carried.
I move to report progress.
When will the Committee Stage be resumed?
I intended to take up the Estimates on Wednesday, but I suppose we had better continue with this Bill, and take the Estimates afterwards.