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THE CHAIRWOMAN of the Revenue Commissioners is to face questioning from TDs and Senators tomorrow on the circumstances surrounding how 115,000 pensioners were told they may have to face additional tax bills this year.
Josephine Feehily will attend a meeting of the Oireachtas committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform on the fallout from last week’s disclosure that the Revenue had told 115,000 they would face an extra tax bill this year – incorrectly in some cases.
Officials from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform will also attend the meeting to discuss the handling of the issue.
Labour TD Alex White, who chairs the committee, said he was “pleased” that Feehily and the officials had agreed to attend, and to discuss “the communication of the tax situation for some older people”.
“No-one will argue with the necessity of tax compliance on the part of all citizens,” White said. “However, many pensioners are unsure of where they stand on their tax liability, and need reassurance.
“At our meeting tomorrow, we will be seeking clarity on the matter, and looking at how this situation was handled.”
TDs will also question Revenue on its broader communications strategy and how it might be reviewed. The meeting will begin at 2pm tomorrow, and a live stream will be available here.
It has separately emerged that up to 15,000 pensioners will pay extra tax this year, even though they are not liable for it – but that this cash will be refunded to them “as quickly as possible”.
Michael Noonan has rebuffed criticism that he made no mention of the data exchange between the Revenue and the Department of Social Protection, saying it was public knowledge that the data was to be shared with the goal of saving €45 million.
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Great news guys. Now get onto Hireland and pledge and give a few jobs.
@torpedo, their focus should not be on giving a few jobs, they should focus on continuation of their successful growth strategy, if they succeed jobs will follow.
They made a pre tax profit of 700 million. I think the can afford to hire one or two people.
‘Very challenging environment’ indeed. It’s a tough business building apartheid cement walls around Palestine, but some Irish firm has got to do it.
They are obviously working in a very challenging environment and there is still some way to go before new jobs will emerge. A profit of less than 4% on sales suggest that further cost cutting will be needed to remain competitive.
A challenging environment all right. Putting up Israel’s apartheid wall.
But its good for tricky Dicky Bruton’s portfolio.
Much of these profits have been made on the back of an illegal price-fixing cartel operating in the.concrete and cement industries. Ongoing legal actions taken by Framus Ltd and Goode Concrete serve to demonstrate the extent of the crippling stranglehold CRH have over many small businesses in this country. Compounding this is the negligence of the Competition Authority who steadfastly refuse to investigate the industry despite the severity of the allegations laid at the door of CRH. The term Regulatory Capture comes to mind here.
CRH operate a cartel with others in the cement, concrete and tarmac markets in Ireland. They have been selling concrete below average variable cost in the Dublin concrete market and abused their dominant position in their upstream cement and aggregates markets by doing so. This is illegal and criminal but they are being protected by the successive Governments due to a term called political and regulatory capture.
CRH has been found to have operated a price fixing cartel in Northern Ireland between 1985 and 1992. CRH was fined by the European Commission in 1994 for conducting a pan European cartel. In 2007 CRH was fined €530,000 for obstructing an antitrust investigation and destroying evidence. In 2009 CRH was fined €25 million for participation in a price fixing cartel in Poland.
CRH is doing monumental damage to the Irish economy by overcharging for cement and tarmac and using this money to subsidise a corporate eviction strategy which is costing the economy jobs.
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