Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is a very serious matter in regard to which all of my colleagues have made important points.

What many of us cannot understand is why it is that the Revenue Commissioners are only now getting into action. Mr. Phelan gave away a bit when he said the Revenue Commissioners only recently understood how this works. The first thing that needs to be clarified is that the farmers from Kerry or anywhere else who supplied Kerry Co-op with milk and who got shares did no wrong. They depended on professional people like the Revenue Commissioners and their accountants, who they paid dearly to present their accounts and to send them in to the Revenue Commissioners, year by year. Clearly, something new must have happened. There must have been some new inspectors, or some new operators, who saw something that the fellows before them did not see. This is a new departure from what happened in the past.

As previous speakers have said, a test case must take place. However, I would have wished that such a test case had taken place before the Revenue Commissioners sent these demanding letters to farmers, of whom there are more in Kerry than anywhere else. I know many of them and, at present, they cannot sleep or eat. It is coming up to Christmas and families are in disarray. I repeat that the farmers did no wrong. They went by the rules. The accountants who represented them are professional people and knew what the Revenue Commissioners wanted, and they acceded to their rules. Something new has happened. However, if something new has happened, the farmers should only be liable from when the Revenue Commissioners recently understood this, whether that was in the past six or 12 months or, as the Revenue Commissioners believe, in the past 18 months. Surely, however, they cannot make a tax law retrospective in order to hit these fellows, so to speak. As committee members have said, these farmers have their books done and they know what they have to spend, even for Christmas. Many do not have much because the price of milk did not give it them this year and the price of beef was just as bad, and if they were in north Kerry, they saved no grain. Therefore, many of them are in a serious predicament.

I ask that a test case be taken first and that the Revenue Commissioners ease off with their letters and demands. Some 400 farmers have received letters but there are more than 3,500 shareholders, and there are also the shareholders in other co-ops throughout the country. We wonder why it was Kerry that was selected for this unfair attack at this time. If a Bill has to go through the Dáil to ensure the Revenue Commissioners do not apply the rules retrospectively on this issue, so be it. Each representative in these Houses will have to unite to make sure no unfairness is being meted out to this group, whether it is 400 or 3,000 people. It seems wrong when there were so many professional people involved besides the farmers.

I know farmers and I am a farmer myself, so I know what is involved. Farmers do not have time to look around them. Between calving cows and trying to provide fodder, there are so many different things to deal with, including safety. People are often working on their own and are enduring a tough time. In many cases, the farmer's wife has to go out separately to work to provide an income to put the food on the table. As I see it, many of these farmers are only doing what was done in the past to hand down to their son, if they are lucky enough to have one.

I cannot see that it is fair that a farmer has to take tax out of his share at the start because the value of the shares is fluctuating every day. They could be worth €1 today and 70 cent tomorrow, but next week they might not be worth 30 cent. As another speaker said, the day the shares are sold is like the day cattle are carried to the fair. A farmer might think he will make €500 and he will hear in the pub that he will make €600 with no bother, but when he goes to Kenmare mart, the cattle might not make €300. That is how I see it. The day the farmers sell the shares is the day they are liable because, as was said, they are only paper until that happens.

Farmers have paid their capital gains tax in the past. I know some elderly people who will not get the old age pension because of the shares, so they have to cash them in to keep going, despite having paid their capital gains tax. The farmers in Kerry did no wrong. If the Revenue Commissioners only woke up to this a year or a year and a half ago, they should not be able to go back to 2011 to collect tax on something the farmers did not know they were responsible for declaring.