Compliant taxpayers will have listened with astonishment to the details revealed on RTE this morning regarding how a very wealthy businessman, Mr. Gerry McCaughey, was able to avoid a relatively modest 20% capital gains tax on a multi-million profit he had made on the sale of his company.

According to RTE Mr. McCaughey and three other shareholders were advised that they could benefit from not paying 20% capital gains tax on the transaction if their spouses lived in Italy for a year.

I have no doubt that Mr. McCaughey acted legally and on the basis of the best and most expensive advice available to him, but this disclosure will incense ordinary PAYE workers, who already pay 41% on any earning over and above the average industrial wage and who now face increased tax rates and levies in the budget.

Mr. McCaughey’s recent appointment as the Chair of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority was positively received but, as with other similar appointments, it was not subjected to any scrutiny by a Dail Committee or other appropriate body. I would like to know if Minister Gormley was aware of this tax scheme before he made the appointment or if he made any inquiry of Mr. McCaughey about his tax status.

It is simply not acceptable that a small and select group of some of the wealthiest people in the country can use complex but routine tax exile schemes to avoid paying their fair share of the tax burden.

Nobody is suggesting that scrapping or restricting tax exile status would solve our massive economic problems, but this is a basic matter of fair play and equity.

If the government is going to ask ordinary taxpayers to take an additional tax hit in the budget on April 7th, the minimum they should expect is that schemes to facilitate tax avoidance by the wealthy are ended.