Nama tax-exile amendment rejected

AN AMENDMENT to prevent those benefiting from the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) legislation using tax exile laws to relocate outside the State was rejected in the Dáil.

During the report stage of the Bill to establish Nama, Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said it would be “outrageous” if individuals who gained advantage “taking over loans, pursuing guarantees, acquiring land development interests, could avail of Ireland’s generous tax exile laws and relocate out of the jurisdiction”.

But Minister of State Peter Power said the amendment “misses the fundamental point of what is good for the taxpayer and the State and what makes Nama more effective”. The amendment would undermine “that important objective”.

Ms Burton said: “We have a situation where Irish tax exiles may be significant beneficiaries of the whole Nama process. People can go offshore for five years for the purposes of avoiding capital gains tax – head for their homes in the south of France or on the Spanish Costa – until the storm blows over.”

She added: “In this jurisdiction it is hard not to be able to get a tax clearance certificate.”

An individual could be in “all sorts of discussions with the Revenue” about their tax liabilities but a tax clearance certificate only meant an individual was up to date on their interaction with the Revenue.

Sinn Féin finance spokesman Arthur Morgan asked what the Government was afraid of in the amendment. “The worst-case scenario is that someone who is not tax compliant cannot avail of the benefits of Nama.”

Mr Power said there were “substantial obligations on Nama in regard to the tax compliance area”, but that was a “separate issue from the central question here, namely, how does Nama achieve the best value for money for the Irish taxpayer arising out of its assets?”. Whether that person “is or is not tax resident is immaterial to that central point”.