Creative Bertie avoids tax bill on book

FORMER taoiseach Bertie Ahern will not pay tax on the estimated €400,000 earned from his autobiography thanks to the artists’ exemption introduced by his former Fianna Fáil colleague and political mentor, the late Charles Haughey.

Deputy Ahern joined his daughter, Cecelia, on the Revenue’s updated list of artists exempt from paying income tax on earnings from their work if it is deemed to have “artistic or cultural merit” and is also “original and creative”.

Labour’s Ciarán Lynch said last night: “Whatever about the first criteria, he certainly qualifies under the second!”