This was before Wallace settled - or his company settled - a sum of €2.1 million with Revenue after he had deliberately under-declared VAT payments made by the firm. A sum which Revenue is unlikely to get as the company is now in receivership.
I've always thought Ireland a strange place, even as a kid growing up in it. Where else - seriously - would you get an ex property developer socialist?
Mind you, we also have socialists who are against property taxes. We have patriotic, investor-supporting anarchists. We have (strangest of all) self-professed "socialist" teachers. Socialist in the deformed Stalinist-state sense I suppose, insofar as they would swear two-plus-two was five in order to maintain their privileges, like the most Stakhanovian apparatchik, and keep the whole rotten edifice in existence.
I do think Wallace is genuine, however. And I'd say he's an alright sort. And at least he is not that gobshite Ming Flanagan with his hick twenty-years-too-late "I smoke pot, you know" posturing. The prat who stood out in supported of a failed compulsory Irish policy when Enda Kenny talked about scrapping it. Kenny subsequently caved into the lobbyists, of course.
Wallace seems OK though. For instance, he has single-handedly provided football facilities for kids in his part of the country, where few - if any - existed previously. I mean "football" as it is understood throughout the whole world apart from the USA, where they require armour to play rugby.
"Soccer", some call it. Wallace has done a lot for the world's greatest game in that particular corner of a country cursed with the Irish establishment sports of Bogball and Stickfighting.
Several of Wallace's former employees called radio stations to support him today, and it seems he was a good bloke to work for. And I must say I found it funny to watch the feigned indignation of TDs getting all worked up about tax-compliance and morality, in a shysters' parliament that deliberately encouraged tax avoidance during the bubble, and possesses all the morality of a paedophile priest set loose in a Kindergarten.
It's difficult to see, however, how Wallace has not left himself open to easy comebacks by his political opponents should he ever speak on subjects such as public services, social welfare or the rest... all funded, of course, by taxation.
What might be interesting, I believe, would be a thorough investigation of every single Dail TDs finances. Property investments, business links, tax returns and the rest of it - even as they are serving TDs. I'm sure you would find quite a few forced to exchange sham indignation for prudent silence.
Wallace's under-payments at least date to before his election to the Irish parliament, but it's hard to see how his political career can continue - and it is finished for a fact if bankruptcy concludes his business affairs.
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7 comments:
"Mick Wallace has not broken any tax law, his company did." Thats grand Mick thanks for explaining that one, enjoy the craic in Poland.
Sometimes, Taxpayer, a short concise comment like yours can say something more effectively than one consisting of several paragraphs.
You're right, of course.
"I've always thought Ireland a strange place, even as a kid growing up in it." Consider yourself lucky GM, the majority never see through it.
Mr Wallace did wrong, it's ultimately up to him what he does with his political career. Though I'll say this GM, there is not many of them in the "Dail" that can preach virtue on this. One, a FG (no boast for them) TD stood up to the insanity of the bubble. Parish Pump Pukes the lot of them. If it was possible to destroy an already consumed fiasco they have done so.
initially i was indignant about this- BUT I think there is a bit more to Mick Wallace - Rarely for an Irish Politician He DOES actually admit to doing wrong.I'd like to read more on his business history- did he just get caught up in this, not realizing how much unstable debt he had taken on- and that buyers weren't there for all his properties? After all he took on massive debts- BUT also a greedy and reckless bank gave it to him. there ARE worse people- and many of these have/ are serving in Irish politics/justice/finance/ high positions in business etc...
Anna, he had no choice but to a admit it as he would appear in the next edition of "Stubbs Gazette" which displays all information on tax defaulters.
A very usefull little journal dating back to 1836.
@ Dakota. With one or two very notable exceptions, D, they all sat in the same room as the bubble inflated nicely. No doubt with an eye on some of their investments.
@ Anna and Taxpayer. I suppose he at least admitted that he knowingly filed false returns, rather than claiming it was a mistake.
Thanks for that Laim, interesting indeed. One thing I'd disagree with: I was living in London during Black MOnday 1992, and Britain's subsequent withdrawal from the ERM. My recollections were not of a boom, I can assure you. The number of empty units on the industrial estate I worked on was very high indeed. The country was still picking up the pieces after a property bubble brought on by easy credit (100% mortages and all the rest) after Thatcher had deregulated much of the financial sector. When I left in 1995, the UK economy was still moribund.
As far as I can see about Wallace, the more you see the more untenable his position becomes. Thank's for that info and those excellent links.
12 June 2012 08:48
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