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Revenue does recognise the difficulty farmers will face in paying the income tax now demanded on purchased patronage shares.
On 18 November, the day the initial letters were posted to Kerry farmers, internal emails between officials including Kerry tax district manager Anne Dullea, assistant secretary for the southwest Charlie Phelan and national commissioner Gerry Harrahill discussed this.
Dullea reported she had a meeting with Kerry Co-op secretary Brian Durran that morning and received a phone call from an unidentified man understood to be involved in Kerry Co-op’s tax affairs. “Brian advised him that a lot of the shareholders are broke,” Dullea wrote.
“I advised that such taxpayers would also have difficulties paying other taxes as well and would be dealt with through Revenue’s normal suite of options for taxpayers in such situation including inability to pay in extreme cases,” she added.
Despite this, Dullea wrote that some letters had already gone and all 400 would be in the post that day.
She brought up the farmers’ expected difficulties to pay as an afterthought in a second email, apologising that she “forgot to mention” that aspect in her first message.
Listen to a discussion of the Revenue's Kerry co-op project in our podcast below:
Listen to "Inside the Revenue's Kerry co-op project" on Spreaker.
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