Ms Josephine Feehily:

I would need time to adjust the entire administrative process.

People who have been around for a long time will remember that when we changed the income tax year, we needed to have a special nine-month year. There would be a transitional arrangement and a large machine would need to be created if one wanted to change the year. Perhaps we did not succeed but we were trying to be mindful of this by placing so much emphasis in the letter - we used a box - on phased payments beginning in January, under which taxpayers would tell us at once whether to spread payments out over 12 months or 52 weeks, beginning in January. We also emphasised the single debit authority, which strikes a balance between my responsibility to secure the tax and taking account of the fact that people might not want to pay this at Christmas or immediately afterwards. If they give me a mandate, I can secure the tax and provide them with the maximum time. We offered several options. However, we cannot offer every option to everyone, which may be what people want me to do. We can only offer options in circumstances in which we can secure the funds.