Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What Ms Feehily stated is slightly disturbing in its own right. Revenue can conduct an audit and come to the conclusion, for example, that a person owes €385,000, including interest and penalties, but the guy puts his hands up stating he has not got a bob, so Revenue publishes that as an audit with nil yield. Revenue might not have collected it but it had determined an amount that should be collectable. That would utterly skew every Revenue chart I have ever seen in all my years here. Ms Feehily gave us figures here for the percentage of audits with nil yield. I and everybody on this side of the table would have assumed that was where the taxpayer came out clean at the end of an audit. Ms Feehily is telling us a nil yield can include those who had a substantial liability for tax, interest and penalties but merely did not have the money, and they are written in as a nil yield.