Without passing any criticism on anybody, it seems to me we discussed on this section rather a variety of subjects. However, I do not propose to follow many of the Deputies down some of the tortuous paths they trod. I said before, and I repeat now, that I will give the question of a more general commission on taxation attention immediately we have concluded our examination of the Industrial Taxation Committee's report.
Everybody in the House will accept, I think, that it is quite inevitable that the work of any such commission would involve a great strain for the technical personnel of the Revenue Commissioners. It would be quite impossible for us to provide the facilities that would be required, and properly required, by the general commission, simultaneous with the examination of the report of the Committee on Industrial Taxation. It was for that reason that I made it clear long ago that I was not going to deal with the one until I had finished with the other. The type of commission best suited for that task is one upon which I have not yet come to a final conclusion. I am inclined to disagree with the suggestion made by Deputy Lemass that members of this House should be included. I think it would be better that the members of this House should be free to give their views, completely unfettered, when the report comes to hand, and when a Finance Bill is, perhaps, introduced, based on some such report. Undoubtedly, the task will be very heavy and onerous and will be of long duration.
Deputy Byrne referred to the fact that we are now in the 104th year of income-tax. Notwithstanding the consolidation of the Income Tax Acts in 1918, there has been such a change in the modern structure of society that it is a task of enormous magnitude to consider how income-tax should be fitted in with modern requirements. It will entail a great deal of work. I agree completely with those who said that only a limited number of people are available to give the time and the energy and who have expert knowledge. The question of "Pay As You Earn" is one of many problems in that regard. In some circles, there is a desire for that system and, in other circles, there is a desire that it should not be introduced. Like many other things, it is a problem of how to reconcile two opposing views. The difficulty about "Pay As You Earn", as it is operated on the other side, is the administrative machine that is built up because of the necessity to make variations on any change of earning conditions during the period—cessation of work, cessation of income and so forth —and the exact system that is suitable for an industrial country like theirs is not necessarily suitable for our country.
I have a completely open mind about the type of commission that should be set up. I am inclined to be against the suggestion made by Deputy Lemass. I agree with Deputy Morrissey that this is a need that has not arisen just now, but which arose many years ago. Of course, each year, as it goes unfulfilled, the need for an examination of that sort becomes greater. I do not think one should face that examination, however, on the lines on which many people are inclined to consider it. I think Deputy Allen fairly and truthfully said there was a tendency to consider the revision of any taxation as meaning that the person speaking would pay less and somebody else would have to pay more.
While I agree with Deputy Byrne in many of the things he said in his maiden speech, I cannot agree with him all the way. He certainly put a good deal of time and research into collecting the material for that speech and, for that, he deserves to be complimented. He adumbrated a very city view—a view that did not take any account at all of the position of our primary producers. Not very long ago, I had a very interesting personal experience in regard to the taxation of farmers here and across the water. It so happened that, in my professional business, I had the necessity to have before me for a period of four or five years the accounts of a 300 acre farm in this country and a 280 acre farm in Berkshire. I found that by and large, year in and year out during that period, the payments made to authorities, central and local, were more or less the same in each country. Here, the farmer paid rates on a heavier scale altogether and income-tax on a lighter scale; there, the farmer paid income-tax on a heavier scale and his land was de-rated. In the end, it worked out more or less that what was lost on the swings was made up on the roundabouts. It is not correct, therefore, for Deputy Byrne to take the view he took, that, in regard to taxation, central taxation alone is to be considered.
I do not propose to follow the various Deputies down the paths they trod in relation to this section. I will content myself with saying that I accept that the provisions of our income-tax code are complicated in the extreme. In an endeavour to make them equitable, I am not sure whether we shall be able to make them simpler. Very often, when you set out to try to simplify something that is complicated and, at the same time, to overcome certain anomalies, it works out in the end that you have a very much more complicated system than the system with which you started. Some Deputy —I think it was, perhaps, Deputy Byrne—suggested that this was the last year, he hoped, that this section would be moved. I think anybody who believes that a commission of the sort that is visualised by either side of this House would have produced results in one or even perhaps two years would be a super-optimist altogether. It may be that such a commission may be able to give an interim report on certain limited aspects, but a general review of our income taxation is something that will take an immense amount of time, and the people who undertake it will be very public spirited indeed.
So far as my views as Minister for Finance on income taxation or on taxation on expenditure are concerned, I have made them fairly clear, not merely by words but by deeds. The Budget, which this Finance Bill implements, turned entirely on expenditure taxation to raise the additional sums that were necessary, and in so far as taxation on income is concerned, it gave certain relief for the purpose of getting more industrial efficiency, and, with that industrial efficiency, more employment, in addition to getting more savings; so that, so far as that aspect of the problem is concerned in this Bill, the trend is obviously away from taxation on income, towards taxation on expenditure. At the same time, I must confess that I agree with my predecessor in office, Deputy MacEntee, that I do not see a practical method of carrying it as far as, say, Mr. Kaldor, of having everything dealt with without gathering a tax of that nature.
