The Stage

Taxman rules Irish soap is art

Published Monday 1 March 2004 at 15:45

Irish revenue commissioners have decided the scriptwriters on the soap Fair City - screened four times a week by national broadcaster RTE - are producing “original and creative” work that has “cultural or artistic merit” and therefore are entitled to receive tax exemptions on their earnings.

Fair City writers Deirdre Leahy and Robert Taylor feature on the latest list of authors, painters and musicians who benefit from the artists’ tax exemption scheme, introduced back in the sixties by the then finance minister, later president, Charles Haughey. The scheme was intended to encourage struggling artists, with the taxman having the final word on whether their work was of sufficient “cultural or artistic merit” to qualify.

Today, the tax break is estimated to be worth 35 million euros a year, with around 1,200 people benefiting. A sore point with Irish actors is that they are excluded from the scheme, while multimillionaire musicians like U2 are covered. There have been frequent - though so far unsuccessful - calls to extend the tax exemption to the profession.

Among those on the current list is another RTE writer, Frances Kay, whose scripts for a children’s show, The Morbegs, also passes the taxman’s scrutiny and is deemed art. Former radio producer Stuart Carolan qualifies for tax relief on the returns from his first play, Defender of the Faith, to be performed at the Abbey later this year.

One actor who does make the list is Risteard Cooper - but only for the Apres Match comedy scripts which he co-writes and performs on RTE. Mickey Harte, whose Irish Eurovision entry topped the singles charts last year, is accorded tax exemption on his album, Sometimes Right, Sometimes Wrong.

Singer Daniel O’Donnell, a big favourite on both sides of the Irish Sea, also makes the list. Ironically, author, playwright and former minister Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien was forced to make a six-figure tax settlement last year when the revenue commissioners ruled that his newspaper columns over the years did not qualify for the exemption scheme.