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THE GOVERNMENT HAS been accused of facilitating wholesale tax avoidance after it emerged that a vulture capital firm is liable to be taxed on just €1,000 of its €4.5 million profit.
Speaking in the Dáil today, Social Democrats TD Stephen Donnelly asked why the Government sold a loanbook for distressed mortgages for just €80 million, when the hedge fund that bought it now values it at €400 million.
Donnelly called the accounts of the vulture firm that bought them, Mars Capital, a “masterclass in tax avoidance”, with around €1,000 in taxable profit from income of over €4.55 million.
He said:
Will the Government launch an investigation into the tax affairs of all these funds that purchase these mortgages in Ireland to ensure not just tax compliance – as tax avoidance is legal – but that the real profits and capital gains that these funds make will be declared properly in Ireland and taxed accordingly?
Today in the Dáil Donnelly spoke of a Kilkenny couple, Sarah and Dominic, who bought a home for their two kids and themselves in 2007.
In 2014, the government sold their mortgage to Oaktree Capital, which is now evicting the couple and their two children via Mars Capital, the company Oaktree set up to buy thousands of distressed Irish mortgages.
He said that Sarah and Dominic would had been able to buy the property if they had received the same discount afforded the US investment firm.
The call to investigate the tax avoidance practices by unregulated mortgage companies follow revelations that one such fund – Mars Capital - bought almost 1,500 Irish home loans from IBRC for just 42% of the amount owed.
The homeowners were denied the chance to buy their mortgages when they were put up for sale by the IBRC special liquidators in 2014.
The homeowners involved remain liable for the full amount of the original debt
As revealed by the Sunday Times, the accounts for Mars, an affiliate of the US private equity group Oaktree Capital Management, show it paid €154.7 million to buy 1,462 mortgages included in IBRC’s Sand portfolio — just 42% of the €363 million owed.
A second portion of 1,866 IBRC mortgages, Project Pearl, was acquired by Mars for 76% of the €329.7m owed by borrowers.
In 2014, the special liquidators to IBRC, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of accountants KPMG, told the Oireachtas finance committee that around 10% of almost 12,000 borrowers whose loans were included in the Sand portfolio, expressed an interest in buying their mortgages.
But they said that selling the loans individually to borrowers was “not practical”, due to cost and protecting borrower confidentiality.
In May 2014, some of these homeowners staged a protest at KPMG’s offices.
“Oaktree put up €80 million of their own money, they now have an asset worth about €400 million,” Donnelly told TheJournal.ie.
I don’t think based on the accounts they’ve submitted, that they intend paying any tax on any of it.
“It’s blatant tax avoidance, and this is just 1,400 mortgages.
“Tens of thousands of mortgages have been sold to various funds - so how much of untaxed money are leaving the country?”
It would appear that this government is guilty of facilitating wholesale tax avoidance by international investment firms making windfall profits here from ordinary people trying to pay mortgages.
Oaktree Capital holds multiple investment firms in the Cayman Islands.
He said the firm’s accounts indicate that the interest income minus the interest costs for the year come to €4,559,904. Donnelly added:
Astoundingly, the figure for administrative expenses against that is €4,558,904, leaving exactly €1,000 in taxable profit.
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5 years sober on the 29th of December best decision I ever made enough was enough
@Damien Barton: Judging on your comments you’re a dry drunk
@Perlum Sprite: judging on your comments you are a pain in the ass know it all who thinks he has the answers to everyone’s problems have a look at your pal before you go talking shite
@Damien Barton: yourself
@Damien Barton: Youre just right, alcohol, for the sake of killing a few hours boredom or enhancing a weekend, does nothing of the sort in the long run, it just continues to damage people physically and mentally.
Cannabis should be legalised, and be widely available. Much less damaging than alcohol.
And it’s not addictive, contrary to the nonsense peddled by politicians and the media.
@Pius Flynn: in the last 15 years my son has taken home about € 100k in wages. He doesn’t drink lives at home and hasn’t got any responsibilities. Bo car etc nothing that costs money. And yet every Monday he is looking to borrow € 30 from me because he spent every penny of his wages on weed. And it’s not addictive…….. Bollox
@Alan Dignam: if I was taking home €6,700 a year in wages I’d be looking for an extra 30 quid a week too.
@Pius Flynn: Yeah Man, sound. I love my psychosis. Yeah sound…
@Gerry Cummins: He’s earned 100k over 15 years is what I think he’s saying! So minimum wage!
@Pius Flynn: sorry to be a prude it’s highly addictive
@Alan Dignam: you must not have told him to go get facked if he keeps coming back every Monday for last 15 years next time he come give him a kick up the ass
@Alan Dignam: He is in the wrong job.
@richard fennessy: you are totally wrong, some people can become dependent on it but not addicted.
@Pius Flynn: is there a difference.they are all just lower level junkies.
@Cian Martin: I was being conservative. It is probably more like 150.00 K
@Damien Barton: So you want me to make him homeless as well ???
@Alan Dignam: cannabis definitely has more benefits than booze, sadly drinking is in Ireland’s culture it’s disgusting, if every serious alcoholic was pushed towards cannabis the world would be a better off place, in the States cannabis is keeping down violence in the getthos but promoting it when it comes to the commerce side, we need to take out the profit, if someone wants to use cannabis nobody should stop the growing it themselves
@Alan Dignam: He is not smoking weed spending that much thats for sure. If anybody could smoke that much they would never be able to move they would be so stoned. Maybe its something else instead
@Seriously stunned: yeah in the same way coffee and tea drinkers are on that chart too
@Seriously stunned: addiction is something that negativity impacts your life. Being dependant on a coffee in the morning isn’t much of an addiction would you say? Neither is a J after a long day of work. Guarantee you’ve never tried it too.
@Pius Flynn: Same thing, same thing. If youre are dependent, then youre addicted!
AA is great, but it’s too easy to get labelled an alcoholic when you may just be a hard drinker.
To be clear, to be an alcoholic you must be addicted to alcohol, if you are not addicted you are not an addict – though you may suffer all of the same problems like relationship breakdowns, job loss, depression etc.
@Perlum Sprite: that’s a load of rubbish.
@Dara O’Brien: what exactly do you take issue with?
@Perlum Sprite: ya… I think you are splitting hairs there. Alcoholism comes in different forms, you may not drink every day but if you go out the weekend and go too far everytime then you have an issue with it. If you then have the same problems you mentioned like job loss etc. Then the label is not what you should be worried about. That’s just a word made up by man to put a name on someone for description. If you are a wreck when you drink but are not physically addicted and you need to tell yourself that is OK because I am not addicted, then you are only fooling yourself really.
@Fandandi: no, I’m not splitting hairs – it’s vital to understand the difference. If you believe you’re an alcoholic when you are not, it can be very damaging to you. A hard drinker can learn to stop or moderate over time, and they can do so unaided. an alcoholic will likely die from drink related illnesses.
@Gerry Cummins: my logic is of someone with 21 years of AA membership behind me and 15 years of research into addiction, particularly alcoholism.
There’s a book used by AA known as the AA bible, or ‘big book’. Its read out at the start of every meeting. It’s widely recognised as one if the three most authoritative documents ever written on alcoholism. In it states, “there are too a certain kind of hard drinker, he may have had the habit badly enough at some point in his life to impair him both mentally and physically, but he’s not s real alcholic for he can learn to stop or moderate on his own”.
I know the basics, seems you and Dara dob’t though.
@Perlum Sprite: ah, ok so you’re saying that if you turn into a drunken mess every time you drink and if you harm all relationships around you every time you drink and if you lose jobs and family every time you drink but you quit drinking yourself then you’re not an alcoholic, just a ‘hard drinker’?
Like I said. Rubbish.
@Dara O’Brien: yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. To be an addict you must be addicted, right? It’s in the name. If I go out and take magic mushrooms tonight and end up in a right state, as you’ve just described, does that make me an addict? Of course not. It makes me someone who can’t handle it, but unless I have an overpowering craving for it, I’m not addicted. I can walk away, whereas an addict will be back out looking for more within hours or days.
It’s very simple, you’ve got to be addicted to be an addict, but it’s perfectly possible to suffer all the same consequences as an active alcoholic by drinking hard, regularly.
Lots of people in their 20’s and early 30’s end up in serious situations through excessive drinking – yet they settle down and learn to drink normally.
@Perlum Sprite: no such thing as black and white broaden your horizons
@richard fennessy: That’s a stupid, pointless comment. If you’ve something to add, add it.
@Perlum Sprite: wrong an alcoholic is some one who can’t stop drinking
@Perlum Sprite: and ya still haven’t a clue
@Damien Barton: and why can they not? Because they are addicted. And btw, some alcoholics, about 10%, stop and never set foot in an AA room, treatment centre or see a counsellor, they instead throw themselves into something else to replace it, often religion.
If a true alcholic stays sober for years, and then falls off the wagon, they go right back to being an addict almost overnight very often. Why? Because the addiction has returned. Same is true of heroin addicts or smokers.
But a hard drinker, who may drink just as much , won’t feel that at all. The craving will not be there or may be no stronger than your average person fancying a drink. .
Carl Junge’s take on it was that alcoholics suffer from a spiritual void, and he was probably spot on about that. The cofounder of AA, Bill Wilson. heard what Junge said, and adopted that into AA through the 12 steps. It’s a central premise.
So Yes, you could describe an alcoholic as someone who can;t stop drinking, you wouldn’t be wrong. But I think it would be more accurate to say they are addicted, and if they do start drinking after a period of abstinence, they usually, if left unchecked, return to the point they stopped at.
@Fandandi: when I was 20, I realised one day I was drinking a disturbing amount. I knew if I kept going, it would turn to alcoholism. I was drinking to get drunk 3+ nights a week. Thing is, I wasnt addicted to the alcohol, but rather, how it made me feel. So one day, I decided to reign it in.
Whilst I did still drink to excess from time to time,it was nowhere near the same frequency. I focused on the bad feelings I was left with, to help me curb what had become a habit, essentially. And… I cut my drinking drastically. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve kept doing so, because I’ve stopped enjoying it as much. Now, I have one or two drinks now and again, and the last time I drank to excess was april or may 2017.
And I was having issues. Not because of the actual alcohol, but because of the going out. Even the times I went out and didn’t drink caused problems. So I just learned to be more sensible, tbh. Less going out, and if I do go out, I prefer things like brunch, or tea, or dinner now.
@Perlum Sprite: I thought you were a fool after your first comment. Then you posted some more and I heard what you were saying. I was a hard drinker but have reigned it in. You speak sense dude. Thanks for taking the time to post. Maybe if others properly read what you said, they too would agree, instead of just wanting to be right
@Perlum Sprite: I can’t stress how ridiculous you sound. Or also possibly in denial about your own addictive personality! Best of luck with your “dependence”.
@Leisha: dickish comment Leisha. Maybe keep your passive aggressive bs to yourself
Alcohol, The cause of,and solution to, all life’s problems.(Homer Simpson)
Alcohol is legal and leads to happiness and one night stands….
The fear of judgment is a huge part of addiction. “Just reach out to someone” sounds so simple until that someone judges you, shames you, is angry at you, gives up on you.
@Sirius: Then that person is not any friend of yours in any way shape or form.
I MADE THE BBC!!!
@Layne Humphries: classic.
All Bullsiht , I once could drink 25 pints any night, that was 40 years ago . I drank as much as would sink a ship, no bother, no problem. I’m now nearly 70 , still drink 3 pints several nights a week. All Bullsiht, drink as much as long as ya can afford it and never mind the medics. Just don’t let it affect home life or your cash flow.
@Eugene Comaskey: how would you like your cirrhosis, medium or well done?
@Eugene Comaskey: not all hero’s wear capes
I like alcohol and alcohol likes me….for I know what to drink and what not to…I stick to the limit and able to get up in the morning bright and early I might add…people throw any amount of diff drinks into them every weekend plus with the unlimited supply of snow its causing huge problems into the mix aswell
“Half of people questioned for the index said that drinking to excess is not a big deal and 74% said it’s just part of our culture.”
This is startling…but also not surprising.
Any culture is blind to its faults and no one can really tell them it is a problem until they are ready to listen.
Until this country is truly ready to ask the hard questions about why binge drinking, drunkenness and alcoholism are so glamourous, it will continue to suffer the ill effects relationally, socially and financially.
@Seeking Truth: you can’t stand far enough away from yourself to see yourself for what you truly are sometimes. We have our issues with drink. Russia has theirs. Other countries have theirs. History has contributed. Some people can see because they want to. Others don’t. Alcoholism won’t be dealt with by country only by individuals.
@Green Lentils: very true well said
Ring fencing the duty on alcohol, and allocating it towards Counselling & Addiction Services, is one place to begin.
@UCC Social Democrats Society: Check the 5 year outcomes from those who attend residential treatment centres, and you may change your mind on pouring millions into a multi-billion euro industry that doesn’t give any better outcomes than AA and NA which are totally free of charge.
@Perlum Sprite: I admit that I didn’t even think of AA & NA – thank you for pointing this out to me. I shall go now and read up some more!
@Perlum Sprite: statistics can be very misleading facts figures stats people r people very different and unique to quote a wise man u r talking text book shite
@richard fennessy: Yeah, only the facts and figures come from a professor of psychiatry at Harvard who wrapped up through his book, “The natural history of alcoholism revisted”, the longest and only study of its kind on alcholism. They followed 600 males over 60 years, and tracked alcoholism through generations.
Speaking of text books, I suggest you read one. Wise man you ain’t.
@Perlum Sprite: That’s the only correct thing you have said in this whole thread.
@Denise Daly: Well you’re free to argue any points you disagree with, I’m all ears
People should try One-Year-No-Beer Challenge. This online forum has great support and material to help you quit or re-establish your relationship with Alcohol.
Here is an additional support to AA called SMART Recovery, this can be an additional piece or a stand alone piece depending on the individuals needs and their choices. https://smartrecovery.ie/
As an auld woman said to me one day as she was eating a feed of fat bacon n cabbage and her 4 sons giving out to her n she in her seventies about her health I never knew I reared as many doctors in the family eat m drink now cos you can’t in a wooden box hi hooo
Sorry about the reposts, it was slow to acknowledge it was posted
Here is an additional support called SMART Recovery, https://smartrecovery.ie/
This can be an additional support to AA or a stand alone group if it meets the needs of the individuals attending.
Here is an additional support to AA called SMART recovery, it can be an additional support or a stand alone piece depending on the individuals choice and what meets their needs, https://smartrecovery.ie/
went to the doctor yesterday.I said doc if I give up the booze will I live longer?
He said no but it will seem like it.
Alcohol issues come in many forms and trying to pigeon hole it causes half the problems. Same with the response to problem drinking.
Some go the AA route, some go the phycology route. Others manage it themselves.
To make blanket claims that one method works is wrong. It may have worked for you but might not for the next person.
Using anything alcohol or systems as a crutch to get through your issues is always going to be a problem for a person.
Fags beer and whiskey, what a Christmas
@classic: I think you left out the words “waste of a” between “a” and “Christmas”
have your say