Revenue Publishes List of Tax Defaulters

Today (11/06/2019), Revenue published the List of Tax Defaulters in respect of the period 1 January 2019 to 31 March 2019. The list is published in Iris Oifigiúil, in two parts.

• Part 1: Persons in whose case the Court has determined a penalty relating to a settlement, or has imposed a fine, imprisonment or other penalty in respect of a tax or duty offence.
• Part 2: Persons in whose case Revenue has accepted a settlement offer instead of initiating court proceedings, or a settlement has been paid in full. This list reflects the amount of a settlement that remained unpaid at the end of the period (31 March 2019). Unpaid amounts are subject to Revenue’s normal debt collection and enforcement procedures.

Part 1: Court Determinations

• Court Determination of Penalty: Subject to certain criteria, in settlement cases where there is no agreement to a penalty, or a person fails to pay an agreed penalty, the Court determines the penalty. Details are published when the Court determined penalty exceeds 15% of the total tax and the total of the tax, interest and penalty is more than €35,000 and a qualifying disclosure has not been made:
  • 8 such cases are published and €392,062.57 is the total amount of the Court determined penalty.
• Court imposed fine, imprisonment or other penalty: Details are published when a fine or other Court penalty is imposed in respect of tax or duty offences. Court penalties may include imprisonment, partly suspended or suspended sentences, community service in lieu of imprisonment, and closure orders.
  • 170 such cases are published and €517,742 is the total of court fines imposed. These cases include:
    • 113 cases of failure to file a tax return, failure to remit tax, failure to produce books and records, or delivery of an incorrect return. Court fines of up to €30,000, a 2 year custodial sentence fully suspended and 240 hours community service were imposed
    • 31 cases of misuse of marked mineral oil, in respect of which Court fines of between €2,500 and €27,500 were imposed
    • 21 cases of excise, licencing and VRT offences including oil laundering, illegal selling of cigarettes, possession of untaxed tobacco for sale, failure to hold a current liquor licence, possession of untaxed alcohol for sale and possession of an unregistered vehicle. Court fines of up to €5,000 were imposed and other Court penalties included suspended custodial sentences, community service and closure orders
    • 1 case of failure to comply with a request to give a name and address to a Revenue Officer in respect of which a court fine of €2,500 was imposed
    • 4 cases of obstructing a Revenue Officer in respect of which court fines of between €2,500 and €3,000 were imposed.

Part 2: Settlements

Settlements are published when the extensive voluntary disclosure options are not availed of and the default arises as a result of careless or deliberate behaviour:

• 62 cases are published today and €21,131,024.16 is the total settlement amount in these cases; 
• 16 cases were for amounts exceeding €100,000
  • of which 4 exceeded €500,000
  • and 2 of which exceeded €1m
• 17 are cases in which the settlement was not fully paid as at 31 March 2019
• €14,379,788.23 was the amount unpaid as at 31 March. Revenue vigorously pursues collection/enforcement of unpaid settlements. In some cases, collection/recovery of the full unpaid amount will not be possible (for example, company liquidation).

Revenue Compliance Yield

These published settlements reflect only a portion of all Revenue audits and investigations. 

In the 3-month period to 31 March 2019, a total of 888 Revenue audit and investigations, together with 23,189 Risk Management Interventions (Aspect Queries and Profile Interviews), were settled, resulting in yield of €153.44 million in tax, interest, and penalties.

List of Tax Defaulters

 [ENDS 11/06 /2019]