Madam, - The chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Frank Daly, addressing the Céifin conference in Co Clare (Nov 9th), talked of "lost opportunities" due to the millions of euro in tax evaded over "a couple of depressed decades". The Revenue Commissioners themselves were responsible for the "lost opportunity" when they failed to collect taxes that were legally due in the 1970s and 1980s.
It was their job to hunt out tax cheats and make them pay, and they obviously failed to do this on a very large scale. The job of a tax consultant is to assist clients in paying as little tax as is possible within the law.
These taxpayers employ hundreds of thousands of people and correctly pay hundreds of millions of euro annually to the exchequer.
To state that "the mists really descend when tax avoidance is mentioned" is a slight on the profession of tax adviser and the army of self-employed who are the backbone of our "tiger" economy. No rational person regards tax as a privilege of citizenship. It is a cost that must be shouldered honestly and within the law, but you need not pay any more than is necessary.
I think what is required from the Revenue chairman is a little less Pontius Pilate and a little more Matt Talbot - after all, it wasn't the taxpayers who were thrown out of the Temple! - Yours, etc,
DEREK RYAN, Sion Road, Glenageary, Co Dublin.