Revenue Commissioners to use 'new technology'
The Revenue Commissioners collected €66bn in taxes in 2007 and it has emerged they are utilising new technology to draw up a list of potential tax dodgers.
A new supercomputer will analyse spending habits and payments from bank records and other statistics as technology plays an increasingly important role for the Revenue in tracking down those dodging tax.
The Commissioners have also been examining cash registers to see if tampering has resulted in taxes being under declared in certain sectors, with cash handling businesses next on the list for investigation.
The tax collecting authority announced their annual returns for 2007 today with chairperson and Limerick native Josephine Feehily satisfied at how they shape up.
Some of the key stats include €66bn in taxes, duties, PRSI, levies, etc. collected: more than €18.5bn repaid, giving net receipts in 2007 of over €47.5 billion - almost €2bn above the corresponding figure for 2006.
For the first time in five years, the receipts were below the Budget estimate, by €1.7bn. Special investigations yielded a total of €132M in 2007. Most of this figure related to the Single Premium Insurance Policy investigation (yielded over €30m) and the Offshore Assets programme (€54M). The cumulative total for legacy investigations is now almost €2.424bn.
There were fourteen convictions for serious tax and duty evasion; 1,263 convictions for non-filing of tax returns and a further 500 summary convictions were obtained for various Customs, Excise and VRT offences.
Total audit and assurance check activity yielded €734m from over quarter of a million interventions: (251,934 which represents a 33% increase in the number of interventions over 2006).
The ongoing construction sector project yielded a further €151.4m in tax, interest and penalties in 2007.
Total audit and assurance check activity yielded €734m.
The number of transactions conducted through the Revenue On-Line Service (ROS) showed strong growth in 2007. Payment transactions were up by 38% to over 560,000 and the value of ROS payments increased by 31% to €21.6bn.
Use of the PAYE Self-Service facilities increased significantly in 2007, with over 156,000 customers registering to use PAYE On-Line and almost 330,000 self-service transactions recorded.
Arrears as a proportion of total gross receipts stand at 1.9% - one of the lowest rates of any tax administration worldwide. Overall debt was €1,286m in 2007. Drugs with an estimated street value of almost €139m were seized and €494,000 of suspected criminal cash was detained. 74.5 million cigarettes and 1,516 kgs of tobacco, with values of €25.6 million and €433,000 respectively, were seized by our Customs Service.
