Revenue Over the Years 1968 - 1976
Seeds of post-war change, nurtured in the sixties, were to be harvested in the seventies. The peaks of human achievement were contrasted by terrible lows. Neil Armstrong's one giant leap for mankind showed what could be achieved. Yet, famine, wars and terrorism stalked the earth below in Biafra, Vietnam and Northern Ireland.
The sixties saw statements of self expression in every artistic form. To foster an environment where the arts could flourish, a tax exemption for artists was introduced in 1969. The Artists' Exemption, costing an estimated £400,000 per annum, created ripples around Europe as it assisted a cultural renaissance in the country.
Boom times were reflected in increased building activity in 1970. Special procedures were introduced, empowering Revenue to cope effectively with the tax regulation of sub-contractors. To this end, the Chief Inspector of Taxes set up special Construction Industry Divisions and Sections in its offices.
That year, Seán Réamonn retired and Commissioner Duignan became Revenue's Chairman. The new Board member, John F. Richardson, was a former Director of Establishments and Chairman of the Revenue Departmental Council. Appointed to the first committee on decimal coinage and metrication, Richardson had played an active role in the introduction of turnover and wholesale taxes. The old order was also changing in the wider world. The early seventies saw three former statesmen pass away - Charles de Gaulle, General Franco and Eamon de Valera. Death was not confined to elder statesmen as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, icons of the sixties, didn't make it through the seventies. The Beatles split pulled the plug on the psychedelic decade as Dana's Eurovision victory showed Ireland's harmonious side. And all kinds of everything might well describe the challenges for Revenue and the country.
Decimal currency in 1971 drew the curtains on coins like the glorious half-crown that had once enriched a youngster's life. With joy, rather than nostalgia, decimalisation was greeted by frazzled accountants and Revenue officials. It saddened others who saw it as a scam to deprive them of their hard-earned pennies.
As Irish bells pealed out 1971, they were also bidding farewell to a way of life. Ireland's Treaty of Accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) was to be signed within weeks. Said to be the most significant event since the Treaty of 1922, it was signed by An Taoiseach Mr. Jack Lynch, T.D. It was to come into effect the following year. As the country edged towards Europe, Revenue structures were also coming closer. That year, an old way of life went with the amalgamation of the Customs & Excise Preventive and Landing streams and the introduction of a new grading structure.
The same year, Value Added Tax (VAT) came into effect. In the Chief Inspector of Taxes area, many former desk-bound staff would now spend much of their time out on VAT work.
On January 1st, 1973, Ireland joined the EEC. The welcome influx of European expertise and funding helped the country on many levels. It also brought a sea-change to Revenue where Regulations, Directives and Decisions became the new tablets of stone. Inward/Outward Processing, Customs Warehousing and Community Transit were some of the regimes that came on-stream. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), involving many C&E people, was introduced a month later. Subsidising and protecting EEC agricultural produce, CAP had faint overtones of the Economic War for those who could remember it. These were to be demanding years for Revenue with constant fluctuations in rates of Export Refunds, Green Pound, Sugar Levies, Monetary Compensatory Amounts (MCA) and various other mechanisms. In line with EEC membership, a new Customs Tariff was introduced and the dismantling of duties in intra-Community trade and the alignment of Irish duty rates commenced over the next five years.
In 1973, Revenue also began collecting Pay Related Social Insurance contributions (PRSI) on behalf of the Department of Social Welfare. Much of the new EU work brought closer relations with other Government Departments, notably the Department of Agriculture. On a broader European scale, Revenue people, representing the national interest, began winging abroad to conferences and seminars. This dimension was increased the following year when the Customs Convention on Mutual Assistance was undertaken. No longer trying to locate Irish towns and villages, Revenue folk were now looking for the Berlaymont Building or the Grand Place.
For the first time in the State's history, the farming sector effectively came into the tax net in 1974. That year, the new Revenue Computer Centre was opened in St. John's Road, Dublin. Staff numbers were increasing in this area, upon which the new work was placing more demands. While people were adapting to change all over the organisation, the sterling service given by the pioneering Data Processing Division (DPD) deserves special mention. Developing and designing Revenue-specific programs, DPD were upgrading the systems to an extent that by 1976 VDU's were on many officials' desks.
A box office hit of the time, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, portrayed an emancipated Scottish school teacher whose rallying call was: Come on girrrls! Many women, heeding similar calls, were now demanding equality. Equality legislation meant that female civil servants were not forced to resign on marriage and would receive the same rates as male colleagues on similar work. The following year, Margaret Thatcher, became the first woman leader of the UK Conservative Party.
This era saw great change in Revenue age profiles, with an influx of school-leavers starting in the Taxes area. It was the biggest ever youth influx to the organisation. Sadly, three of those young lives were brutally extinguished in the Dublin bombings on May 17th, 1974. Breda Turner and Marie Phelan were killed in Talbot Street, while Siobhán Roice died in Parnell Street.
That year, Commissioner Culligan retired and Niall C. Maguire replaced him. Joining Revenue in 1932, Maguire worked for a time in the Department of Industry and Commerce. On his return to Revenue, he was actively involved in the Customs Co-operation Council and various EEC committees. A native of Belfast, he entered the religious life after retirement.
1975 marked the tide of change in Revenue's Estate Duty area when it was expanded and renamed Capital Taxes Division to cater for new work. From 1963 there had been many changes in the legislation pertaining to this area. Most of these were in abatements of duty in respect of benefits taken by widows and dependent children and treatment of certain policies of insurance and superannuation payments. The acceptance of some form of Capital Taxation, expressed much earlier, came to pass with the introduction of Wealth Tax and Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT) which introduced Gift Tax and Inheritance Tax and raised £100,000 in its inaugural year.
Frequent legislation during these years, to close tax loopholes, introduced more complexities to the administration of Income Tax and Corporation Tax. The long, hot summers of the mid-seventies saw major new or reformed taxes introduced. Jaws was the box office hit of 1975 when Capital Gains Tax (CGT), administered by the Chief Inspector of Taxes area, bit off its first £400,000. The following year, Corporation Tax replaced Corporation Profits Tax and yielded £15 million in its first year.
The face and faces of Revenue began to carve new identities during this period. CÁNA Credit Union had opened three years earlier to provide a valuable service to Revenue members. Public servants' salaries came under PAYE in 1976. Although these years saw some of the greatest tragedies in recent Irish history, relations between Irish/UK/NI Revenue administrations were never stronger with regular cross-border sporting fixtures that continue to this day.
The first meeting in Ireland of Heads of EEC Customs Administrations, chaired by Commissioner Niall Maguire, took place in 1976 at Dromoland Castle. A historic double taxation convention was undertaken with the UK in that year and Agreements were also signed with West Germany, Italy and Zambia. Around this time, the first seeds of Revenue's customer service drive were sown. A monthly Information clinic, for Drogheda taxpayers, was operated by Dublin PAYE 8 District.