Revenue publishes list of tax defaulters

Today (11/06/2024), Revenue published the list of tax defaulters in respect of the period 1 January 2024 to 31 March 2024. 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 2024. 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 wherethere is no agreement to a penalty, or a person fails to pay an agreed penalty, the Court determines the penalty. Details arepublished when the Court determined penalty exceeds 15% of the total tax (where the total amount of tax exceeds €50,000) and a qualifying disclosure has not been made:

• There were 5 such casesin the 3-month period to 31 March 2024, with €517,063 being the total amount of the Court-determined penalties.

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:

• 79 such cases are published and €178,215 is the total of court fines imposed.

These include:

• 14 cases of failure to lodge Income Tax return(s),1 case of delivering incorrect Income Tax return(s), 1 case of claiming Income Tax relief to which one was not entitled, 1 case of failure to lodge VAT return(s), 1 case of failure to remit VAT, 2 cases of delivering incorrect VAT return(s), 1 case of claiming VAT repayment(s) to which one was not entitled, 1 case of delivering incorrect Corporation Tax return(s), 1 case of failure to produce books and records and 2 cases of producing incorrect invoice(s)-document(s), in respect of which Court fines totalling €46,000 were imposed. Sentences of varying lengths were also imposed as follows:
  • two sentences of 3 years and 6 months (fully suspended)
  • two sentences of 2 years (fully suspended)
  • one sentence of 18 months (fully suspended)
  • and
  • three sentences of 80 hours of community service in lieu of one year’s imprisonment.

• 22 cases of misuse of marked mineral oil, in respect of which Court fines totalling €65,200 were imposed.
• 28 cases of excise offences for tobacco smuggling, illegal selling of tobacco and possession of untaxed tobacco for sale. Court fines totalling €60,750, and eight sentences of varying lengths were imposed as follows:
  • two sentences of 18 months imprisonment
  • two sentences of 16 months imprisonment
  • one sentence of 1 day imprisonment (suspended for 1 day)
  • one sentence of 60 hours of community service in lieu of 2 months imprisonment
  • one sentence of 240 hours of community service in lieu of 2 years imprisonment
  • and
  • one sentence of 6 months imprisonment to run concurrent on each summons.

• 2 cases of failure to hold a current liquor licence, in respect of which Court fines totalling €1,265 were imposed.
• 2 cases of possession of untaxed alcohol for sale, in respect of which Court fines totalling €5,000 were 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:

• 11 cases are published today and €4,002,820 is the total settlement amount in these cases.
  • 11 cases exceeded €100,000
    • of which, 4 cases exceeded €500,000.
• 2 are cases in which the settlement was not fully paid as at 31 March 2024.
• €1,401,047 was the amount unpaid as at 31 March 2024. Revenue vigorously pursues collection-enforcement of unpaid settlements. In some cases, collection-recovery of the full unpaid amount will not be possible (e.g. company liquidation).

Revenue Compliance Yield

These published settlements reflect only a portion of all Revenue Compliance Interventions. In the 3-month period to 31 March 2024, a total of 14,899 Revenue Compliance Interventions were settled resulting in a total yield of €195,677,591.

List of defaulters

[ENDS 11/06/2024]