Latest news with #BrianLenihan
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Nama chief makes good on Lenihan order not to ‘mess it up'
The late minister for finance Brian Lenihan, who set up the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) in 2009, left five words ringing in the ears of agency chief executive Brendan McDonagh shortly before he passed away 14 years ago this week. 'Brendan, don't mess this up,' Lenihan told McDonagh in their last meeting before he died, the Nama chief recalled to reporters on Wednesday. When Nama took over €72 billion of mainly toxic commercial property loans from five banks for a discounted price of €32 billion, the fear was that it would lose billions. Even when Ireland was at the end of an international bailout programme in 2013, members of the rescue team told Department of Finance officials that Nama would likely end up with a €10 billion shortfall. READ MORE It wasn't helped by Nama overpaying to the tune of €5.4 billion for the loans in the first place – adhering to a long-term economic value method forced upon it by legislation to lessen the holes that Nama transfers would trigger in the domestic banks' balance sheets. Many objectives have been projected on to Nama over the years, such as fixing the housing crisis , by virtue of the swathes of land it controlled; contributing more to the common good; and providing more homes for social housing, even though local authorities ended up accepting only about 2,400 of the almost 7,000 units offered over the years. Nama's remit widened about 13 years ago to deliver thousands of homes and develop land in the Dublin docklands . But Nama's core objective, enshrined in the very Act that set it up, was to obtain the best achievable financial return for the State. It made enemies along the way. Try finding a developer that has much good to say about dealing with Nama officials over the years – even ones that it agreed to work with, while enforcing against others. It's not difficult to find critics, too, in the halls of Leinster House. But it is now on track to deliver a lifetime surplus of €5.05 billion – having upgraded its forecast on Wednesday by €250 million – by the time it is wound down at the end of this year. Adding the €5.4 billion it first needed to recoup to break even on the original overpayment actually brings the total financial gains for the State to more than €11 billion. Lenihan would surely have approved of that outcome.
Irish Independent
17-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Revealed: Only 15 ‘super-rich' tax exiles paying domicile levy
The levy was introduced after the financial crash, as a way of ensuring that wealthy individuals whose permanent home is in Ireland but who live overseas for tax reasons make some contribution to the Exchequer. A flat charge of €200,000 a year, it applies to those whose worldwide income exceeds €1m, whose assets in Ireland are valued at more than €5m, and who paid less than €200,000 in income tax. However the numbers paying the levy have been dwindling, and it raised less than €2.5m in 2023. In reply to a Dail question, the finance minister Paschal Donohoe said the total raised from the levy since 2019 was just €11.5m. At the time the levy was introduced by the late Brian Lenihan as finance minister, about 5,000 Irish people were declaring themselves non-resident for tax purposes each year. In 2009 the chairwoman of the Revenue Commissioners, Josephine Feehily, said 440 of these were 'very wealthy'. If all of these paid the levy, it was noted, this would raise €88m. Tax 'exiles' are allowed to spend 183 days a year in the State, or 280 days over two years. Some political parties had suggested that instead of introducing a domicile levy, it would make more sense to reduce that number of days instead. In his response, Mr Donohoe said that based on data available from the income tax returns for 2022 for self-employed people, 27,500 reported that they were non-resident. One of the few people known to have paid the levy is the horse-racing tycoon JP McManus, who did so in 2012. The fact that he was tax resident outside the State emerged in court papers in America, after he attempted to recover about $5m in tax that was with-held after he won a backgammon game. A letter from Revenue to the American authorities in 2015 said that Mr McManus had not been registered for income tax in Ireland since 1995, but confirmed that he paid the €200,000 domicile levy in 2012. Four years ago an unnamed Irish businessman failed in a legal challenge against the validity of the levy. The Tax Appeals Commission ruled that it is not a 'tax', and that it does not interfere with the free movement of capital.
