Revenue Commissioners
Contrary to what the Revenue Commissioners and the “Reckless, Macho and Chaotic,” Environment Minister Phil Hogan has stated, (Latter words are from the lips of Eamon Gilmore and God forbid that I should ever be accused of making such utterances.) it has emerged that only around 25% of home owners have filed their returns for the Local Property Tax (LPT). This is despite having until only close of business today to post the same returns.
Those who opt to file returns ‘Online,’ will still have until May 28th to complete same electronically. However only around 420,000 of the 1.66 million liable households or approximately one in four, have informed Revenue of how much they owe. Many others returns still remain not issued as yet and thousand more households have still to be even identified. Third level students who received incorrect demands and who own no property in the state are unlikely to even bother replying as they head for foreign parts.
Revenue’s Property Tax Manager Vivienne Dempsey, has stated that if the LPT Returns are postmarked ‘Tuesday 7/5/2013,’ Revenue will actually accept the return as having been received on time.
Obviously, from her remarks some of the people that are currently left employed in the Revenue LPT branch, and the 100 extra which are to be employed via the permission granted to break the public sector jobs embargo, together with outside contractors, are to be issued with magnifying glasses, when the problem of badly inked franking machine pads, in rural post offices, raises its ugly head in Limerick tomorrow.
Remember of course that the Revenue public officials requesting these LPT Returns are the same people who benefit from Protected Employment, Generous Sick Leave, Long Service Increments, Guaranteed Pensions and Workplace Flexibility. Together with their Unions and Staff Associations these same persons have clearly demonstrated, in recent weeks, that they, and they alone, and not the present government, actually legislate for these “Three Green Fields,” of this so called free republic, so recently invaded by Germany, in a bloodless coup.
One wonders will these same Senior Revenue Auditors, working on these LPT Returns, now receive the same generous gifts previously doled out, following their hard work investigating the infamous Bogus Non-Resident Account scams some years back. These same generous tax free gifts were given on production of a prepaid receipt for items such as foreign holidays and other trinkets and were ever so quietly palmed into the pockets of these auditors, without the full knowledge and consent of Irish taxpayers.
Bogus Non-Resident Account scams you will remember were promoted by smiling Bank Officials, in order to allow, through non-existent foreign addresses, rich customers to pay no tax, while also permitting Banks to pay low rates of interest on the poor man’s deposit account, and all at the expense of the Irish exchequer and those dependant on its generosity.
What I now fail to understand is how these same smiling, banking Gombeens, (Latter word is a pejorative term used here in Ireland for a shady, small-time “Quick Buck Merchant.” ) then proven to be dishonest through their assistance to customers in evading tax, were never prosecuted, but instead allowed to continue trading as normal, eventually leaving the residents of this country lying face down in the muck, paying tax on home ownership.
As an educated nation we sure have a very short memory.
Banking Gombeens are above the kind of law that we have in Ireland