Tax code in crisis
Equity and justice must replace
tax evasion and
avoidance
other week, another financial scandal. Over the last
week the media has soaked the repercussions of the
disclosure that foreign firms nominally resident in
Ireland could be using their status here as cover for
criminal activities such as fraud and money laundering.
This latest episode adds to the previous disclosures
about National Irish Bank selling its customers
controversial deposit packages which allowed them to
escape tax obligations in the 26 Counties.
This comes on top of previous disclosures about the
Ansbacher accounts; three separate reports have been
sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Add to
this recent Revenue Commissioners survey which showed
the state's top earners paying less than half the tax
PAYE workers are burdened with.
The only conclusion that can be reached when analysing
these ongoing events is that the 26-County tax regime
is in crisis. It is riddled with the twin diseases of
tax evasion and avoidance.
By making tax avoidance a legal pastime for those who
can employ tax consultants and exploit loop holes in
the tax code the Dublin Government's financial
authorities have created a parallel culture of tax
evasion.
Successive Dublin Governments must take most of the
blame. It is they who have created the system of lax
financial regulation that has allowed the current
crisis emerge.
The core player in financial regulation in the 26
Counties is the Central Bank. Their operations are
shrouded in secrecy. They have refused to disclose
information to the Moriarty Tribunal and under current
legislation are free to do so.
This week as we move on from another financial scandal
there is only one way to move forward. That is to
establish a new tax code where equity and justice are
its central components and a reformed open and
accountable Central Bank is regulating the 26 Counties.
Workers still have a world to win
Communist Manifesto 150 years on
``The history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggles.......The proletarians have
nothing to lose but their chains. Working men of all
countries unite''.
These are the first and last lines of one of the
shortest revolutionary texts ever published - the
Communist Manifesto. The manifesto, which is less than
12,000 words long and written by Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, was 150 years old last week. To mark
the anniversary the James Connolly Education Trust
invited renowned marxian scholar and author Istvan
Meszaros to speak last Wednesday in Dublin on the
manifesto and the role of marxian theory in the 1990s.
There are certain drawbacks to attending a meeting
organised on a left wing platform in Dublin today. One
is that, as the chairperson of the Meszaros meeting
stated, there is always a fear that many people come
not just to listen but to spout off large tracts of
didactic theoretical propositions and dogma. On this
the Trust score highly as most of their meetings don't
entertain such nonsense.
The strength of Istvan Meszaros' talk was that he
brought the Communist Manifesto to life in a 1990
setting showing its relevance for the aspiring social
revolutionaries of today. He described the Manifesto as
being one of the ``most influential of programs'' and its
publication ``had repercussions all over the world''. No
one, Meszaros said, could ``deny the importance of the
manifesto'' though there are plenty who minimise its
importance''.
There were two initial themes to Meszaros' lecture. The
first was the fallacy of modernity and modernisation in
the 20th Century. The second was addressing the
co-called ``crisis of marxism''.
Modernism was, according to Meszaros, ``a favoured
political term of politicians who want to avoid the
issues of today. His examples were Tony Blair and one
of his Labour predecessors, Harold Wilson. For both of
these Meszaros said modernisation was a ``shy way of
referring to capitalism''. The end result is that they
``cannot solve social and economic problems by putting
labels on them''.
The crisis of marxism was ``a crisis for the political
movements who have abandoned it''. It was caused by the
``onset of the structural crisis of the capitalist
system,'' he said.
Meszaros believed that ultimately nothing can save the
capitalist system as it now exists. It had hit relative
and absolute limits. Global capitalist organisations
such as the World Trade Organisation, IMF, World Bank,
G7 and the EU had all ``run out of impact''. They were,
he said, ``riddled with contradictions.
In terms of absolute limits to capitalism Meszaros
asserts that there are four clear limits. They are: The
contradiction between transnational companies and
national states; The environmental consequences of
creating a system of destructive production; The
illusion of a partnership between labour and capital.
``If equality is admitted capitalism is undermined,''
said Meszaros; Chronic unemployment. ``Capitalism is
incapable of a finding a solution''.
The final question Meszaros posed was ``How do we
respond to all this? The revolutionary parties have
been outflanked... We have to question the system in
general. There is a need for a rearticulation of
radical forces. The challenge the Communist Manifesto
put 150 years ago is still in front of us today''.
The Communist Manifesto can be bought at Connolly
Books, Essex Street Dublin priced £2.50.
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