AN 81 year old widow who left Ireland as a young woman and returned when her English husband died in 1982 does not have to pay income tax to the Revenue Commissioners here on securities abroad, the High Court held yesterday.
The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Costello, ruled that Ms Claire Proes, who became a British national, would not have to pay the tax on income arising from securities outside the State as she was not domiciled here.
Under the Income Tax Acts a person must pay income tax on income arising from securities outside the State, but that did not apply to "any person who satisfies the Revenue Commissioners that he is not domiciled in the State".
The judge said that the question which arose in the case was whether Ms Proes had been domiciled in Ireland since 1982 for the purposes of the Income Tax Acts.
The Revenue assessed Ms Proes from 1982 to 1990. She appealed the assessments and the Appeal Commissioners held against her. This was affirmed by the Circuit Court in 1994, which held that she was domiciled at all relevant times within the State.
Ms Proes was born in Ban don, Co Cork, in 1916 of Irish parents. As a young woman, she left the State and took up employment in England. She married an Englishman in 1940, became a British national and resided outside Ireland. When her husband died she returned to live in Kinsale, where she and her husband had had a holiday home for many years.
Mr Justice Costello said that she came to live in Kinsale in 1982 because she had nowhere else to live at that time. She envisaged that if she ceased to be able to look after herself she would return to England to live closer to her two married daughters, who were living in London and to whom she could look for support and assistance.
She continued actively to search for a suitable residence in London and eventually purchased and refurbished a residence for herself in mid 1992. From the facts and evidence, Ms Proes never ceased to have an intention to return to reside permanently in England, the judge said.
The judge said that the Circuit Court judge was incorrect in law in determining that Ms Proes had acquired a domicile of choice in the State. She had acquired an English domicile of choice which she had not abandoned and, accordingly, at the relevant times her Irish domicile of origin had not been revived.