Madam – The criticism by Dr Garret FitzGerald at the MacGill Summer School in Glenties (Home News, July 19th) of our tolerance of “widespread tax evasion”, especially in rural Ireland, is clearly borne out in evidence.
The Revenue Commissioners collected over €80 million in tax, interest and penalties from almost 400 tax evaders in the year to March 31st, 2010, according to the four most recent quarterly lists they published.
Co Leitrim and the postal districts of Dublin 10, 17 and 24 were the only parts of the country which did not list a single tax evader from April 2009 to March 2010.
Galway, Monaghan, Cork, Donegal and Kildare, in that order, are the counties where the greatest amount of tax, interest and penalties were imposed by Revenue. Taxpayers in Leitrim, Limerick, Carlow, Laois and Cavan, in contrast, were the most tax compliant. The average, collected per capita throughout the country was €61.29 but in Co Monaghan the amount collected, per capita, was €501.17.
Apart from Cavan and Leitrim, there is a much stronger propensity for tax evasion in Connaught and Ulster than there is in Leinster and Munster. Dublin, with 28 per cent of the nation’s population, coincidentally accounted for 28 per cent of the €80.59 million collected. Cork, with 11 per cent of the nation’s population, accounted for just under 11 per cent of this money. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – I welcome the positive comments by Martin McGuinness at the MacGill Summer School this week, where he stated that it is counter-productive to have two competing economic development agencies vying with each other for direct investment.
This in my view must change and change very soon so that we as an small nation can create jobs throughout the 32 counties of Ireland especially in the Border counties, which have suffered so much. It is time for change. – Is mise,