Message from President Olivia Lynch to Members of the Irish Taxation Institute
18 December 2009
Dear Member,
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support to our Institute. This has been a very challenging year for all our members whether working in professional services, the corporate sector or the public sector. However, the year has also been marked by the dedication of our profession and our ability to perform effectively in transformed circumstances. While our tax yield figures are dramatically down, our contribution to the effective working of self assessment is as critical as ever. Our members are also working hard to help attract jobs and inward investment projects to Ireland. Members have also been central to the efforts of Irish owned businesses to stay afloat and keep people in employment.
Our Institute has played its part in supporting our members in these endeavours. We have introduced new support services this year including our monthly information service TaxRelay and we have transformed existing services such as TaxFind. We have also transformed our AITI courses and we will continue this programme of transformation next year. We are very conscious of those members who may be experiencing unemployment as a result of the downturn and we hope that our heavily reduced subscriptions and free entry to seminar and conference programmes will help them to maintain their presence in industry. In addition, all members can now pay their subscription by direct debit and we have discounted the cost of our information services and seminar programmes.
At a recent Institute event, our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micháel Martin TD, in praising the role played by the Institute and our members, highlighted the significant contribution tax consultants make in driving forward commerce and investment, recommending policies that minimise the tax burden and assist entrepreneurship and by solving problems and opening doors for inward investment. These qualities and skills consistently demonstrated by the tax profession will be of critical importance in 2010 and future years. Your Institute will strengthen and widen its support services to the profession to assist it in meeting these challenges. We will continue to broaden and improve our education programmes to enhance members’ skills in advising in this constantly evolving business and tax environment, with a particular focus on structured professional development for qualified members. We will also ensure that the Institute continues to play its key role as a credible and authoritative voice on tax policy and administration matters. We will do all this while continuing to control our costs thereby helping you to control yours, with our continuing priorities being quality and value for money for you, our members.
I wish you, your colleagues and your families a very peaceful Christmas and every success in 2010. If I or any of the team at the Institute can be of help to you at any stage please let us know.
Kind regards,
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Olivia Lynch
President