Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

In fairness, every time we ask for a breakdown of a particular tax it translates itself down the road into changing taxation form No. 11. It adds another page to what is already an ever-expanding document. Every time we seek the cost of various allowances, pages keep getting added on. It is a pity we do not have another way of getting the information, but I know that in order to obtain the data the question must be asked on the form. That makes it far more complicated and while people are facing a mountain of paperwork, there is a balance to be struck. Somebody must intuitively have some feel for it, even if they are only estimates. It went from 0% to 5%, so somebody must have felt it was worthwhile to do this. I would like to know the rationale and thinking behind it.

The approved retirement funds are not taxed at the point of entry, but there are situations where the beneficiaries will not be taxed. If they draw money out of the fund, like everyone else in the country, they will pay income tax, levies and the universal service charge. I would not make a virtue of the fact that they are paying tax, but one of my main reasons for posing this question is that I do not know what the financial yield is. Even the Department of Finance is in the dark in this respect, but maybe there is something out there that is worth going after. There is something inequitable about bringing in a new pension levy, however. The Minister will remember that the outgoing Government increased it to 5% in the last budget because we felt it was worth doing, in its own right, as regards the ARFs. It was considered necessary and appropriate to do so.

We are now moving on to a new pension levy amounting to 0.6% per year for four years, which will be about 2.4% or 2.5% at the end of that period. The public will be outraged, however, when they hear that they will all have to pay the pension levy, but that Seanie FitzPatrick is getting off scot free again. It concerns the politics, equity and integrity of this House if we pass legislation to bring in a pension levy for everyone in the country, except Seanie FitzPatrick and Michael Fingleton. I am using their names because they have appeared in the public media on several occasions. I have sourced the names and, in addition, some of the figures were in the annual accounts. It will be a bad day's work for this Dáil, however, if this happens. The Minister may rightly ask whether we have learned nothing in the past, but we have learned not to do a thing like that again. It would be a very bad day for the Government, however, to vote through this pension levy thus allowing a situation that applies to everybody except the Seanie FitzPatricks and the Michael Fingletons. I really do not believe the Minister thinks it is a good idea that they should be getting off on this specific measure that will affect everybody else in the country.

It will not be long until the December budget and I am glad the Minister is open-minded in considering the levy. He does not want to mix up the 5% tax with this new levy. It is well within the ability of the Department of Finance and the Revenue Commissioners to operate two levies on the one fund because we already have income tax, pension levies, the universal service charge and income levies. Most earners are used to four or five categories of tax, so it is unacceptable to offer a defence that an imputed tax will be complicated to calculate because adding a pension levy to that would mix up two taxes. Everybody's payslip has a mixture of four or five taxes and their net pay is a very sad thing as a result. We cannot accept the argument therefore that it would be somewhat complicated to mix those two issues in relation to Seanie FitzPatrick and Michael Fingleton.

I cannot understand why the Minister has not agreed to this on the grounds of equity. If the new Government's first finance Bill is to create a specific exemption from the levy for Seanie FitzPatrick and Michael Fingleton, the public will not understand it. That position is supported by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, and the Labour Party generally, so it beggars belief how they will vote for this measure. The mind boggles.

I would like the Minister to explain the politics, equity and fairness of this. How is it that the first finance Bill of this new Government will pass a levy for everybody in the country, yet exclude Seanie FitzPatrick and Michael Fingleton? If the Minister can explain that, he is a better man than I am. I do not think the Minister should do it. Nobody in the House thinks it is the right thing to do. The Minister has until 5.30 p.m. to propose a one-line amendment to deal with this matter. I do not think there are another four hours in this debate, so it can be adjourned to allow the Minister to come back before Report Stage. We will facilitate that if the Minister wants to adjourn the debate for an hour or two. It would be worth the Minister's while to capture Sean FitzPatrick, Michael Fingleton and all the other people like them, in this levy.

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