Fair play Josephine.

The Chair of the Revenue,accompanied by her assistants,did the honourable thing during the week.She apologised to those elderly persons who were caused unwarranted distress by the mishandling of the bulk issue of letters to people targeted in the exercise.As their issue straddled the New Year and as refund applications are limited to payments made or refunds due within four calender years it was refreshing to hear her concede that refund applications as far back as the 2007 tax year would be allowed and that Revenue would not hide behind the possibility that the correspondence might not be delivered until 2012.
She also conceded that where Revenue decided to go back six years for collection of tax that the the clock would start from 2012.Or so it seemed to me.
You will see an anomaly here,which is that where you are owed a refund you can only go back 4 years.But if you owe money Revenue can go back 6 years.What's sauce for the Revenue goose is not sauce for the citizen gander and it is high time this was equalised.Either four years for both or six years for both I say.
A chance for the Government to do the right thing at little expense.
There is little sympathy for the elderly amongst the usual high profile commentators ,who are so divorced from reality that the haven't a clue how real people live and have no concept of the fatal effects that unreasonable hassle can have on the elderly and infirm,never mind the healthy.
I would guess that the vast bulk of the pensioners are helping out their adult children and grandchildren  financially and emotionally and any hit delivered will have widespread ramifications.
Personally I feel that those who have Contributory pensions paid for them over a long working life and it is immoral to either tax them or allow them to be even taken into account at all in computing a person's tax liability.Similarly women who stayed at home to raise families should have their contributions equally recognised and be afforded the same concessions.
Of course all the political parties colluded in making these pensions other welfare entitlements taxable so none have any moral ground in shouting about it.Tweedledum and Tweedle Dee.
Finally the Revenue are independent only to the extent that the Government theoretically cannot intervene in individual cases .Tax policy is Government driven and to suggest otherwise is nonsense.Were it not thus it is the Revenue who would run the country as an unelected Dictatorship.
Fine Gael and Labour cannot pass the baton of blame to Revenue and to attempt to do so is dishonest and is nothing but a screen to deflect blame from the upcoming scourges that will drive even more people to the emigrant  ship,despair ,illness and premature death.
I have long railed against the nanny State that is fast approaching the status of the former East Germany,with its encouragement of informants,its absolute control of the lives of its citizens,the vesting of increasingly more power in the hands of its civil and public servants and the pursuit of its citizens even unto the grave and beyond.
Like the former East Germans,those that can are getting out and those that cannot are living in fear of what next follows.
Yes the ligature tightens in the open prison.If the latest polls are anything to go by this suits the Genghis Khans fine.
Given reports that the stormtroopers of the Stanhope Benedictine will shortly be scouring the nursing homes of the Country to shake down sick and indigent and that the volunteers of the GAA are also in the firing line ,the boy scouts and school going infants better be on guard.
Bi ullamh.