Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I move amendment No. 13:

In page 17, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following:

3.—Notwithstanding any provision of this Act, no person may participate in acquiring any benefit or advantage under this Act unless such person is tax resident within the State and has complied with his or her tax liabilities to the State.".

This is another fundamental amendment and because it was also much discussed on Committee Stage I will summarise the point. I am willing to concede that technically it is not perfect and I offered the Minister the opportunity to bring forward amendments that reflect its principal purpose. It would be outrageous if people who benefit from the chain of actions arising from NAMA, taking over loans, pursuing guarantees, acquiring land development interests, could avail of Ireland's generous tax exile laws and relocate out of the jurisdiction. The Minister answered that there are requirements for tax compliance certificates but these are limited documents, as Members who receive them before or after elections know.

Section 210, under which NAMA is not to make payments in certain circumstances, states in subsection (3):

(a) the relevant person delivers to NAMA, or to a person authorised by NAMA, a valid tax clearance certificate issued to the relevant person by the Collector-General, or

(b) the Collector-General has confirmed to NAMA, following a request from NAMA, that it has no objection to the making of a payment to the relevant person.

Former employees of the Revenue Commissioners and tax inspectors whom I know have expressed the gravest concern that this gives the Collector-General powers to authorise NAMA to make payments to persons who are not tax compliant. That is another extraordinary development because the payments in the context of NAMA will total €56 billion and the beneficiaries of those payments will include those in the chain in the bank relating to "namafied" assets and loans. I am not aware it has been a principle in our legislation that the Collector-General is empowered to allow another agency to make payments from the State. That cuts across the requirement that where a person receives a payment under section 210 he or she must be in possession of a tax clearance certificate unless the Collector-General says that is not required. In this jurisdiction it is difficult not to be able to get a tax clearance certificate. One can be in all sorts of discussions with the Revenue about one's tax liabilities but a tax clearance certificate does not mean, as the name implies, that these have all been cleared. It simply means one is up-to-date with whatever interaction one is involved in with the Revenue.

The purpose of this amendment is to stress that those involved in the NAMA process be tax complaint. The Minister's objection to this amendment was based on the hope that many of the buyers of the NAMA assets held in other countries would come from overseas. That is easily addressed and the Minister can bring it forward.

Again, we have a situation where Irish tax exiles may be significant beneficiaries of the whole NAMA process. People can go offshore for five years for the purposes of avoiding capital gains tax - head for their homes in the south of France or on the Spanish Costa - until the storm blows over. There was a famous case in this country involving large amounts of money lost to the Revenue Commissioners who had legitimate expectations that tax would be paid on a particular transaction.

I want to hear from Fianna Fáil some level of determination that the ordinary worker will be protected. For example, civil servants working in Leinster House have had a 7% pension levy imposed on them in addition to other levies while paying the top rate of income tax. Some accept it while some do not. However, a certain set of people, because of tax breaks that Charlie McCreevy and Deputy Bertie Ahern stoked, have marginal tax rates which are laughable. The last report by the Revenue Commissioners on the top 400 taxpayers showed that 20 people with an annual income of over €2 million had a marginal rate of income tax of under 9%.

This amendment seeks an undertaking from Fianna Fáil - I presume the Green Party would be in agreement with it - that it will ensure all its friends in the building and development industry benefiting from the NAMA process- those who made so much money on the backs of ordinary workers - will be in the frame for paying moderate taxes.

See this speech in context