asked the Minister for Finance if, to avoid hardship, he will issue the necessary instructions to prevent employers from making further deductions in respect of income-tax from wage packets until after Christmas.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Payment of Income-tax.
I presume that what the Deputy has in mind is the collection of income-tax arrears of employees by means of deductions which employers are required by the Revenue Commissioners to make from the employees' remuneration. Recovery of arrears by this method flows from a power conferred upon the Revenue Commissioners by the Oireachtas under Section 6 of the Finance Act, 1923, which incidentally was the first Finance Act introduced by the Government of Saorstát Éireann. It would in my view be improper for me to attempt to influence the Revenue Commissioners in regard to any action which they may take to secure the better discharge of the duty imposed on them by law to collect the revenue duly and effectively. The Deputy will in any event appreciate it would not be desirable or practicable to suspend for a number of weeks the collection of arrears in a particular manner. Furthermore, I am not satisfied that hardship arises inasmuch as, in fixing the quantum of deductions, the practice is to take into account the employees' income level and his general circumstances.
Is it not a fact that the Minister has given very strict instructions to the collectors to hound these wage-earners for the amount due in respect of tax, apart from trying to collect it through the employers?
There is no foundation for that statement. The Minister has no power and no right to instruct the Revenue Commissioners as to how to collect revenue. The law places the obligation and responsibility on them for the collection.
Is the Minister aware that there is a considerable volume of opinion that considers that Section 6 of the Finance Act of 1923 is not constitutional?
You do not expect me to challenge that.
asked the Minister for Finance whether he is aware of the fact that income-tax demands are being sent to married road-workers in the County Kildare who are clearly not liable for income-tax; and, if so, if he will state for what reason such demands are being served.
The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative and the second part accordingly does not arise.
In order to make the position clear I should perhaps add that workers in the employment of the Kildare County Council, to whom presumably Deputy Norton refers, have been sent notices of assessment to income-tax, but not demands. The first instalment of tax for the current year is not payable until the 1st January, 1953. No assessment was raised where a worker was known to be married and not liable to tax. Married workers who have received assessment notices and who have not been granted the appropriate allowances should, in order to claim those allowances, make returns on the forms already supplied to them for the purpose.
Might I call the Minister's attention to the fact that notices of assessment have been issued to married workers employed by the Kildare County Council though they are clearly not liable for income-tax? Will the Minister say on what grounds the Revenue Commissioners propose to raise assessments in these cases when they have no information whatever that the persons concerned are liable for income-tax?
Let me refer the Deputy to a sentence in my reply: "No assessment was raised where a worker was known to be married and not liable to tax." It is up to the workers who have received these assessments to fill up the form and claim the allowances.
The Minister states that no assessment was raised against a worker who is known to be married. I am looking at a notice of assessment served on a worker, a married man with one child under 16 years of age and in receipt of £4 per week. Yet the Revenue Commissioners purport to say that this man's income was such that an assessment should be raised against him. On what information was the assessment raised?
This is another example of Deputy Norton's slick tricks. Quite obviously the Revenue Commissioners did not know that that person was married. It is up to a person who is married and who is entitled to a personal allowance at least to claim the personal allowance to which a married person is entitled. He has not done that and that is why the assessment was raised.
It is a logical assumption that if he has a child of 16 years of age he must be married.
Arising out of the reply, will the Minister make it quite clear, as otherwise his statement might be misread, that even though demands for tax are not made until after 1st January next, appeals against the assessment must be raised within 21 days of the assessment?
This is specifically stated on the notice of assessment which these individuals have received.
Will the Minister say whether the revenue from this income-tax is for the purpose of financing the increase in the salaries of judges and district justices or to finance the new transatlantic air service?
Or to finance the findings of the Civil Service Arbitration Board. Remember that.