Look who’s worried about colossal tax implications of gay marriage

IT’S remarkable that when there’s a threat that the State might have to spend money on something other than a minister’s extravagance - like somebody’s rights - there are colossal implications for the exchequer.

That was the view of Justice Minister Michael McDowell earlier this year and it has not changed after the lesbian couple were given leave by the High Court to take a legal challenge to have their Canadian marriage recognised.

If they are successful, the revenue commissioners will have to treat them as a married couple for tax purposes.

Even before that High Court decision was announced, scare tactics were summoned up by the justice minister when he warned that an extension of tax breaks to a significantly higher number of people would have “colossal implications” for the exchequer, and therefore consequences for married couples.

Just in case married couples did not appreciate the consequences, he spelled them out. “The very, very generous tax regime for married people would have to be reduced to bring in equality.”

Note that it’s not just a “generous” tax regime, or a “very generous” one, but a “very, very generous” one.

In other words, married people were going to be the scapegoats if the state is forced to recognise the rights of others. They would be made pay a penalty by the Government if that day ever arrived. If Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan manage to get the better of the taxman, it will be a decision to benefit cohabiting couples and gay couples.

Officially, it has been estimated that the ultimate cost to the exchequer, because of possible knock-on effects, would be in the region of €2 billion a year.

It’s a lot of money, but it’s only a fraction of the cost of tax-free schemes for the rich and influential about which the Government is totally unconcerned.

Labour party finance spokesperson Joan Burton this week unearthed details which revealed that such schemes, for those who do not need them, are costing the taxpayers over €8 billion every year.

There are 28 such schemes for the country’s richest people and, bad though that is, the Government remains unaware of the cost to the exchequer of another 33 tax schemes. It’s seems absolutely incredible, until we remember the revelation very recently that 41 single and married people with incomes of more than €500,000 paid zero tax, not one cent, in the year 2001, and they had no were legal obligation to do so.

That’s an area that the justice minister might scrutinise to save the exchequer “colossal implications” because he is a member of a government which presides over such an inequitable system.

Another one that would bear scrutiny is the total and scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money by some of his cabinet colleagues. Martin Cullen, who is now transport minister, must have had an entire tier of phantom government behind him during his tenure of the Department of the Environment.

He spent an unbelievable €9.2 million hiring outside experts, or consultants, or whatever, to advise him.

I never got the impression that Mr Cullen suffered from an inferiority complex or a feeling of inadequacy which that level of external advice might indicate, so he could have an addiction to spending taxpayers’ money.

He was also the man who stubbornly insisted on spending €50 million on the infamous electronic voting system, despite the advice of experts who told him not to go there. Most of the computers that were bought for the e-voting system that never saw the inside of a polling station are now gathering dust, as well as storage and insurance bills.

I suppose, when you’re giving €11,2000 a month - A MONTH - to a PR adviser, largely for advice on e-voting, there has to be some kind of perverse reasoning that you shouldn’t ignore it. Especially when that PR adviser happens to be your former campaign manager.

ALSO gathering dust somewhere are the 145 reports that Micheál Martin commissioned while he was minister for health. God only knows how many forests he was instrumental in destroying to produce so much paper, but we do know that it cost us €30 million.

Maybe, health ministers throughout Europe had a surreptitious game between themselves to see who could produce the most reports. If they did, then Micheál must have won it hands down.

There was no mention of who got the contract to build the shelves, but while so much money was being spent on reports to addle him even further, brand new hospital units all over the country were lying idle.

While 145 reports were lying on shelves, patients where languishing on trolleys wondering how a health service which cost €10 billion could possibly be so bad. Maybe now that he’s minister for enterprise, some business acumen might rub off on him and he may learn the value of taxpayers’ money, and how to put it to good use. With a whole raft of abuses where the Government could clean up its financial act, maybe Michael McDowell might refrain from putting the frighteners on married people.

When handing down his decision that the lesbian couple could challenge the taxman, Mr Justice McKechnie stressed that the granting of leave offered no comment on the ultimate outcome of the action.

It may well not, but it must be very comforting to Ms Zappone and Ms Gilligan that a High Court judge saw enough merit in their case that he allowed them go ahead.

They are obviously tenacious women. They got married in Canada in September last year, after 23 years of being together, which means it must have been one of the longest engagements on record.

After the High Court decision Katherine Zappone said the case was about equality and human rights, and for them it was a case as well about equality and human rights in the context of love.

Well, I wish them the best in their endeavours to get equality on tax, but they will need a lot of love to sustain the challenge. Their case is not just about the fairness or otherwise of the tax regime here, but also questions the traditional notion of marriage in the country.

Already, there are rosary beads rattling all over Ireland as heaven is assailed to save this institution, and the Knights of St Columbanus and Opus Dei are assembling for battle.

Even if they do win this historic legal argument, Michael McDowell, worried about the “colossal implications” for the exchequer, should take comfort from the comment of Senator David Norris.

He said that formal recognition by the state of stable gay relationships would- among other desirable consequences - result in “less drawing of the dole and fewer sick certs.”

I don’t know if he was implying that all those on the dole are gay, but if you get a quizzical look the next time you hand in a sick cert at work, you’ll know why.