TAX NEWS - June 2010

Irish Tax: Revenue publishes list of Irish tax defaulters

The Irish Revenue today published a list of tax defaulters from whom it has recovered a total of €17.56m.

The total yield from Revenue settlements between April and June - -  including defaulters not named in today's list - - was €179.4m.

The biggest individual case involves a tax settlement of €2,565,442 by solicitor Barry Fitzgerald of Kiltartan House, Forster Street, in Galway (list - Excel spreadsheet). There were four cases in which the amount of tax owed was more than €1m. 38 of the published settlements were for amounts exceeding €100,000.
 
The list is published in two parts:

Part 1 lists every person upon whom a fine or other penalty was imposed by a court.

This includes the following categories:

- Failure to file a tax return
- Filing an incorrect return
- Illegal selling of tobacco
- Cigarette smuggling
- Various excise and licensing offences

Part 2 lists audit settlements where the Revenue Commissioners accepted a specified sum in excess of €12,700/€30,000 in settlement of any additional liability for tax, interest and penalties instead of instituting proceedings for the recovery of the penalties and where:

- a qualifying disclosure was not made by the taxpayer prior to the commencement of an audit and the amount of fine or penalty included in the settlement exceeded 15% of the tax.

In the 3-month period to 30 June 2009, there were 87 settlements accepted, which fall to be published. The settlements in these cases have been agreed and paid by the respective taxpayers and total €17.56 million.

Of the 87 published settlements 38 were for amounts exceeding €100,000; of which 8 exceeded €500,000 and 4 of that 8 exceeded €1,000,000.

Of the 87 settlements:

- 1 settlement totalling €0.80million relates to an Ansbacher account holder
- 5 settlements totalling €2.48million relate to Bogus Non-Resident holders,
- 14 settlements totalling €2.16million relate to Revenue investigations into Offshore Funds and
- 16 settlements totalling €3.16million relate to Revenue's Single Premium Insurance Products Cases.

The published settlements reflect a portion only of all Revenue audits and investigations concluded in the 3-month period to 30 June 2009. The total yield from Revenue audit and investigation programmes settled in the period 1 April to 30 June 2009 was €179.40 million.