Revenue Publishes List of Tax Defaulters

Today (09/06/2020), Revenue published the List of Tax Defaulters in respect of the period 1 January 2020 to 31 March 2020. 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 2020. 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:
    • 6 such cases are published and €850,088 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.
    • 137 such cases are published and €324,890 is the total of court fines imposed.

These cases include:

  • 66 cases of failing to lodge, or delivering incorrect, tax returns, failing to produce books and records, failing to remit VAT, and incorrectly claiming a VAT repayment. Court fines of up to €25,000 and a custodial sentence of up to 2 years were imposed;
  • 43 cases of misuse of marked mineral oil, in respect of which Court fines of up to €17,500 were imposed;
  • 28 cases of excise and licencing offences including, smuggling of tobacco, possession of untaxed tobacco for sale, failure to hold a liquor licence, possession of untaxed alcohol for sale and obstruction of a Revenue officer. Court fines of up to €5,000, 240 hours community service, 200 hours community service in lieu of imprisonment, four suspended sentences and one temporary closure orderwere imposed.

Part 2: Settlements

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

  • 35 cases are published today and €6,024,932 is the total settlement amount in these cases;
  • 16 cases were for amounts exceeding €100,000
    • of which 2 exceeded €500,000
    • and 1 of which exceeded €1m;
  • 12 are cases in which the settlement was not fully paid as at 31 March 2020;
  • €3,181,997 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 2020, a total of 675 Revenue audit and investigations, together with 20,762 Risk Management Interventions (Aspect Queries and Profile Interviews), were settled, resulting in yield of €107 million in tax, interest, and penalties.

List of Tax Defaulters

ENDS [09/06/2020]