Madam, – I have long ago accepted not to expect any objective comment on any aspect of my public career from your columnist Fintan O’Toole. Thus, I do not bother to take issue in print with him (or indeed, for that matter, with other commentators) on the quite often biased and inaccurate commentary relating to me.
However, I feel I must (although very reluctantly) respond to his column of February 24th, in which he accused me of being “patently untrue” in 2004, when I told the Dáil: “It is not possible to identify the number of Irish citizens claiming to be non-resident for tax purposes.” Mr O’Toole is wrong. What I said then was completely true and it is equally true today.
The written question in 2004 asked the Minister for Finance the number of Irish citizens who were tax exiles.
In the next sentence of that same Dáil reply (which Mr O'Toole did not bother to report), I explained that, "income tax returns do not request data on citizenship as the question. . . has no general relevance for tax purposes". Indeed, as far as I'm aware, the only developed country in the world which taxes its non-resident citizens is the United States. Except for Irish source income, liability to tax in Ireland, and in almost all countries, is based on residenceand not on citizenship.
Mr O’Toole does not appear to understand that the figures he quoted for the years after 2004 (“after McCreevy’s departure”) had nothing to do with Irish citizenship; they were figures for all non-residents, regardless of citizenship, who filed an Irish tax return – presumably because they had Irish source income or gains – and ticked the relevant box.
And “McCreevy’s departure” had nothing whatsoever to do with the availability of these figures: it is clear from the answer by my successor as Finance Minister to a Dáil question that 2005 was the first year in which the Revenue Commissioners captured such information from tax returns.
I understand that it was only from 2005 onwards that the Revenue Commissioners stored this information from returns electronically; this has enabled figures to be given since that year. – Yours, etc,