Revenue Over the Years 1959 - 1967
The fifties ended with Ireland's emergence from the troughs of emigration and unemployment into a new Europe, in which the country would actively participate. Chairman Rice retired and was succeeded by Commissioner Haslam. The new Board member, Bartholomew Culligan, a Clareman, had served on the staff of the first Uachtarán na h-éireann, the Department of Supplies and the Customs and Excise Secretariat. The following year, Commissioner Réamonn became Chairman on Haslam's retirement. The new Commissioner, James C. Duignan had worked as an Inspector of Taxes. Moving to the Secretariat, he was a key player in drafting PAYE legislation and in the double taxation conventions with Sweden and Japan. Delegate to the Fiscal Committee of the OECD, he was also actively involved in developing computerisation in Revenue.
The Sixties, which would bring phenomenal social change, arrived as Fidel Castro took control of Cuba and Russia signed Accords with the USA. They also saw the birth of the global village with the earth shrinking under the advance of mass communications. World events beamed into millions of homes as television afforded visionaries a new medium to shape global trends. Delia Murphy and Din Joe's Take the Floor were to become memories. The Space Race, heart transplants and the Beatles were all catalysts in this broiling decade. Teilifis éireann began broadcasting in 1961, bringing new perspectives on the outside world to Irish firesides.
To intense jubilation in Ireland, John Fitzgerald Kennedy became US president in an election as exciting as the chariot race in Ben Hur which won a record ten Oscars that year. Civil war erupted in the Congo and Irish Defence Forces, in the blue berets of the United Nations, travelled to Katanga. Some never came back. The late Frank O'Rourke, then with the Irish army, survived the Niemba massacre and later worked in the Custom House, Dublin.
On October 6th, 1960, PAYE came into operation almost unheralded and set the tone for the following decades in Ireland, which then had the lowest rate of personal taxation in Europe. The number of taxpayers would rise dramatically as a result of these revolutionary tax changes which would provide increased funding for Government expenditure. The tax cases to be processed would treble.
Revenue trends were reflecting what was happening in the country. An Taoiseach, Seán Lemass had opened the damgates of the Irish economy, encouraging multinational companies to set up here. Lemass's vision of " an economy significantly stable to enable all the Irish to live in their own country, to elevate the performer principle at the expense of the possessor principle" was coming to pass. Jobs and money began to flow into Ireland as Whitaker's Plan took shape.
In 1961, the Berlin Wall was erected and Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth. At home, a historic Supreme Court decision (Melling v Mathmagamhna) held that smuggling offences were of a criminal nature. The following year, the world held its breath as a week of tension ended with the Russian decision to remove missiles from Cuba. Revenue's rationalisation saw the closure of Customs and Excise stations in towns like Tipperary, Ballaghadereen and Tuam. Abolition of Entertainment Tax now meant all play and no work for C&E officials frequenting dancehalls. In that year, Bill McGarry became Chief Inspector of Taxes.
The recommendations of the First Commission on Taxation, which would give rise to major changes in Revenue operations, were laid before the Oireachtas in April 1962. They included sections on death duties, the desirability of capital taxation and a central collection office. While agreeing with the Commission that income tax was in essence a good form of taxation, the Government also accepted the view that a form of sales tax might be appropriate. This came to pass the following year when Turnover Tax was introduced. The Finance Act, 1962 also introduced powers to tackle evasion of tax including the requirement that tax-payers make their business records available to Revenue.
Another recommendation of the Taxation Commission to see fruition was the streamlining of tax work with the aid of computers. The volume of work, generated by PAYE, was labour and time intensive but help was at hand as Revenue advanced into the world of electronics. JFK was shot in 1963, but who can remember where they were when Revenue's first modern computer - an ICL 1301 - cranked into life? This was the second computer installed in an Irish organisation. The first was in the Irish Sugar Company, a few years earlier. The fledgling Revenue Data Systems Section was based in Dublin's áras Bhrugha (now Revenue's customer service flagship, the Central Revenue Information Office). As The Beatles played over in the Carlton Cinema, a hard day's night was on the cards for many Revenue people when the computer began working twelve hours a day.
That year, another Whitaker proposal came into effect when Customs duties were cut, signalling the Government's intent to abolish protection of Irish industry. The Brussels Nomenclature replaced the 1932 loose-leaf Tariff, designed to facilitate international trade. However, this move towards Free Trade and European integration was overshadowed by De Gaulle's veto on Ireland's EEC application.
In 1964, a new arm of Revenue came to life with the opening of the Office of the Collector-General (CGs), a central collection office. Seán P. Bedford was the first Collector-General. Particulars of assessable income from the tax districts where it arose would be notified by the relevant tax office to the new CGs. Previously, collection had been carried out by local Collectors of Taxes. A minor tax collection service had also been provided by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, where taxpayers including those on PAYE could purchase tax stamps against their liabilities.
The next year, Saturday attendance ceased for most Revenue staff . Dublin's famous landmark, Nelson's Pillar, bit the dust in 1966, the year of China's Cultural Revolution. The same year saw free secondary education further broaden young Irish horizons. The three year old Turnover Tax was now joined by Wholesale Tax. But both would later be replaced by Value-Added Tax (VAT), based on EEC requirements. The late Buddy Kirwan, whom we last met trying to locate Swanlinbar in 1933, was one of the main Revenue people involved in the introduction of these new taxes.
Women, no longer content to follow their mothers' lives, were asserting themselves in broader spheres. Mrs Indira Gandhi, elected Prime Minister of India in 1966, became the world's second woman to hold such a position. Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton, the faces of the sixties, popularised the mini skirt. But the length of skirts wasn't the only reduction in that year when the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement reduced duty rates on all UK goods. Significant GATT advances pointed the way to the eventual removal of trade barriers.
As flower children flocked to San Francisco in 1967, Revenue's computer, with insufficient capacity to deal with the volume of business, was replaced by a state-of-the-art Honeywell 1200. It was not quite a summer of love for those people involved in operating the new system as overtime became the norm. The computer, now such an integral part of Revenue operations, was originally introduced as a pilot scheme to assist tax collection. That year, the Minister for Finance told the Dail that, as far as he was aware, "no other Revenue administration was as fully computerised as the Irish Revenue Service."
By the time the Income Tax Act, (1967) was passed into law, staff numbers in the Chief Inspector of Taxes had doubled to 1,400 out of a 4,000-strong Revenue complement. This Act, replacing the 1918 Great Britain and Ireland Act, was the first consolidated body of tax law in the history of the State. These years saw Income Tax yields increase to such an extent that they were surpassing the Customs and Excise duties that had traditionally topped Revenue's tax heads.
Apart from far-reaching changes within, Revenue was also active in matters beyond these shores. The sixties, reflecting Irish industry's increased international dealings, saw double taxation treaties with Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Belgium, Canada and France. Commissioner Culligan brought high honour to Irish Revenue when he was elected Chairman of the Customs Co-Operation Council in 1967, a position he was to hold until 1969. It would only be a matter of time before Ireland's EEC application was accepted. This period had seen great economic achievements and a decline in emigration. Ireland, in song the country of four green fields, had become a field where dreams were possible and change was the norm. Yet, some things never change, like Bill Mc Garry's recollection of a senior colleague's remark in the 1920s:
"Things have never been the same in Taxes since August 1914."