Revenue Publishes List of Tax Defaulters

Today (09/03/2021), Revenue published the List of Tax Defaulters in respect of the period 1 October 2020 to 31 December 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 December 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 31 December 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.
  • 98 such cases are published and €214,345 is the total of court fines imposed.

These include:

• 34 cases of failing to lodge tax returns, delivering incorrect returns and failure to remit VAT. Court fines totalling €56,750 and six 3-year sentences, all fully suspended, were imposed;
• 34 cases of misuse of marked mineral oil, in respect of which Court fines totalling €90,000 were imposed;
• 26 cases of excise offences for tobacco smuggling, illegal selling of tobacco, failure to hold a current liquor licence and alcohol smuggling. One 3-year sentence, fully suspended, was imposed with court fines of up
  to €7,000 imposed for the remaining cases;
• 4 cases of obstruction of a Revenue officer, in respect of which Court fines totalling €7,500 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:

• 32 cases are published today and €16,911,854 is the total settlement amount in these cases;
• 17 cases were for amounts exceeding €100,000
  • of which 6 exceeded €500,000
  • and 3 of which exceeded €1m;
• 6 are cases in which the settlement was not fully paid as at 31 December 2020;
• €12,115,373 was the amount unpaid as at 31 December 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 31 December 2020 a total of 265 Revenue audit and investigations, together with 14,324 Risk Management Interventions (Aspect Queries and Profile Interviews), were settled, resulting in yield of €200.4 million in tax, interest, and penalties.

List of Tax Defaulters

ENDS [09/03/2021]