The Gazette 1985

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GAZETTE SEPTEMBER 1985
Correspondence
The Editor,
Law Society Gazette,
Blackhall Place,
Dublin 7. 6 August 1985
"Only Collect"
Dear Sir,
The leading article under the above title, in your June
issue, while a useful contribution to the ongoing debate
on our existing tax collection system, fails to get to the
root of the matter.
Your leader-writer says "The failure of the State to
collect Revenue is a major defect of our tax system", and,
later, "The efficient collection of revenue is a duty which
the State owes to those in the PAYE sector and to those
outside it who pay their tax promptly".
I could not agree more. But the root of the matter is that
so long as the State continues to rely mainly on the
outmoded, inefficient and, indeed virtually inoperative
sheriff law for the enforcement of collection of tax
arrears, than so long will the State be failing in its duty to
collect outstanding revenue, and so long will those in the
PAYE sector, and those outside who pay their tax
promptly continue to suffer quite unnecessarily heavy tax
burdens.
The idea of equating a Certificate of the Collector-
General with an Order of of the High Court, and
directing that it should be levied in the same manner, i.e.
by seizure and sale of the defaulter's goods and chattels
was misconceived from the outset. It was not, so far as I
am aware, preceded by any investigation of the efficiency
of that mode of enforcement, nor by any survey of the
capability of the existing Sheriffs, or, more importantly of
the County Registrars who discharge the sheriff function
in 24 of our 26 counties, to discharge the duty with the
resources at their disposal. And by resources I am not
referring only to staff numbers, since the four remaining
Sheriffs, who are paid by results, can increase their staffs
to meet the demands of their work, and it is open to the
Department of Justice to provide additional staff for the
County Registrars' offices as the need arises. That, of
course, is not to imply that the Department has done
this — by and large and with minor exceptions, outside
the Dublin office, County Registrars' staffs remain at the
same strength as they were 30 years ago, despite the
enormous increase in workload.
No, when I speak of the resources at the disposal of the
enforcing officers, I refer rather to the inherent weakness
in the law which provides only for enforcing payment by
seizure and sale of a debtor's goods, which is an outdated
and ineffective concept in today's society.
As I have said more than once before, one only has to
look at the law relating to the sheriff system to appreciate
this view. The only Irish textbook on the subject was
published in 1888 and has never been revised since — it
has not seriously needed revision because, apart from
some minor amendments wrought by an Act of 1926, the
law remains as it was when Dixon & Gilliland was
published.
Any system of enforcement which was set up to operate
in 19th (and earlier) century trading and business
conditions must necessarily have lost most of its relevance
and effectiveness in the very altered circumstances of
today. A hundred years ago, apart from lands or house
property, it was in goods and chattels that a person's
wealth lay, and a sheriffs task of levying by seizure and
sale was relatively easy. Today, wealth lies in income, in
investments and in bank deposits, and almost everyone
lives and trades on credit in one form or another.
I could enlarge on this topic at very great length —
enough to take up several pages of your Gazette.
However, I expect that your professional readership is
already, from its ineffectual efforts to collect on foot of
Fi.Fa.s and other Execution Orders in the sheriffs' hands,
already well enough aware of the weakness of the system
not to need any more detailed exposition here.
Those who wish to pursue the subject further will find it
very fully dealt with in the issue of your contemporary,
"Stubbs Gazette", dated 10th April last.
Ineffective as the sheriff system has shown itself to be in
the enforcement of collection of ordinary civil debts, it
was, or should have been, unthinkable that it would ever
work in the vastly larger field of tax collection, at least
without drastic overhaul and the injection of greatly
increased staff numbers.
It will not work. I have said that again and again until I
am almost blue in the face, to Government Ministers and
their officials, to the Revenue Commissioners, to the
Committee on Taxation, to Seminars of the Law Society
and in other places. I would not bore your readers with its
repetition now, were it not for the fact that I considered
that your leader called for comment and since there must
still be some who have not got the message.
Yours, etc.,
T.G. Crotty,
Solicitor,
45 Parliament St.,
Kilkenny.
The Editor,
Law Society Gazette,
Blackhall Place,
Dublin 7. 31 July, 1985
Dear Sir,
I refer to the Comment in your issue of June, 1985,
which addressed itself to the matter of deposits and
payments on account to builders in respect of houses in
the course of construction.
The comment stated that the Law Society and the
Dublin Solicitors Bar Association had continuously
criticised the failure of the Scheme to include protection
for deposits and payments on account paid to builders.
The comment concluded by stating that it was past time
that the Irish Scheme came into line with that of the
United Kingdom.
Our organisation has, from its inception, stated clearly
what its warranty offered to purchasers. I find it an
interesting use (or abuse) of the English language that
because we are not doing what others would wish us to do,
partly for their protection, that this is classified as a
'failure' on our part.
Readers may not be aware of the fact that discussions
have taken place recently with representatives of the Law
Society when we outlined our views on deposit cover and
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