Sir, – Harry McGee reports that Minister for Finance Michael Noonan finds a proposition to extend the right of multimillionaire tax exiles to reside in Ireland for up to 244 days per year, without further liability to Irish taxation, “attractive” if they were to buy this right in the form of philanthropic payments of €15 million to unspecified charities over a period of 10 years (Front Page, July 15th).
It is odd that he should find this attractive at a time when the State is waging a relentless public relations war across the globe to persuade a very sceptical public that Ireland is not an easy touch when it comes to tax avoidance following the Apple tax controversy in the United States and the deliberations of the G8 leaders in Enniskillen on enhanced international tax transparency.
Apart from that, such a proposition can only have merit in Ireland if it is clearly seen to benefit society as whole – those that reside in the country without reservation and who diligently serve the national interest for up to 52 weeks, not merely 34 weeks.
The fact that the leadership of many charities in Ireland receive remuneration of a scale that is dazzling in its magnitude, and that the State does not even have a charity commissioner to oversee these regimes, hardly strengthens the proposition, nor make it attractive, in the eyes of ordinary hardworking compliant taxpayers struggling, with incredible difficulty, to make ends meet.
However, were the proceeds of such a proposition to be applied, for example, to the Government’s Irish Aid Programme, taxpayers in general would be relieved of some of the obligation to fund this programme as they are obliged to now through additional borrowings of €600 million per annum. The capacity of philanthropy in Ireland and its generous multimillionaire tax exile patrons to personally embrace the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, from an Irish-resident tax perspective, would give some tangible expression to the advocacy of Bono and his passionate belief that 80 per cent of Irish people support this programme – as the funding of it become discretionary and not merely another titanic compulsory tax burden. – Yours, etc,
MYLES DUFFY,
Bellevue Avenue,
Glenageary, Co Dublin.