Revenue Publishes List of Tax Defaulters

Today (08/12/2020), Revenue published the List of Tax Defaulters in respect of the period 1 July 2020 to 30 September 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 30 September 2020.

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:
  • There were no such cases in the 3-month period to 30 September 2020

• 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.
  • 80 such cases are published and €183,098 is the total of court fines imposed.

These cases include:

• 32 cases of failing to lodge tax returns and delivering incorrect returns. Court fines totalling €83,750 and one 18-month sentence (1 year suspended), were imposed.
• 24 cases of misuse of marked mineral oil, in respect of which Court fines totalling €68,500 were imposed.
• 24 cases of excise offences for illegal selling of tobacco, processing of illicit tobacco products, failure to hold a current liquor licence, alcohol smuggling and possession of untaxed alcohol for sale. 10-month sentences, fully suspended were imposed in 7 cases with court fines of up to €2,500 imposed for the remaining cases.

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:

• 17 cases are published today and €19,985,948 is the total settlement amount in these cases.
• 8 cases were for amounts exceeding €100,000
  • of which 5 exceeded €500,000
  • and 4 of which exceeded €1m
• 7 are cases in which the settlement was not fully paid as at 30 September 2020.
• €11,736,486 was the amount unpaid as at 30 September 2020. 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 30 September 2020, a total of 212 Revenue audit and investigations, together with 10,914 Risk Management Interventions (Aspect Queries and Profile Interviews), were settled, resulting in yield of €88.3 million in tax, interest, and penalties.

List of Tax Defaulters

[ENDS 08/12/2020]