Ms Lorna Gallagher:

Six. I can highlight two or three for the committee, if it believes time is a pressure. I will start with the one that has been obvious to all of us from the get go, which is the matter of cases stated. The Deputy asked whether we had been judicially reviewed, to which the answer is "No". However, there is an appeal mechanism in the tax legislation whereby an appellant or the Revenue Commissioners, if they are so minded, may appeal us directly to the High Court to have what is effectively a point-of-law rehearing. That provision requires an Appeal Commissioner himself or herself to draft the case stated document, which is a detailed and exacting document for the benefit of the High Court judge who will hear the case. A series of questions must be set out, the determination must be clearly put forward, the points of appeal clarified and all of the exhibiting, supporting documentation included.

I believe we have asked, and will do so again, for this provision to be amended in a manner that will alow usl to request the appealing parties to draft a case stated document for review by us so that we can then alter or amend as necessary. Drafting case stated documents takes many hours, consuming a great deal of our time. We will ask for that change. When our body of determinations grows, the number of appeals will inevitably grow as well. The interesting thing about the case stated legislation is that it provides a tight timeframe of three months within which an Appeal Commissioner must draft, finalise and sign the case stated. As such, if I receive a case stated application, I must prioritise that ahead of determinations that have been sitting on my shelves and awaiting my attention. If the parties could draft the case stated document for my review and my final sign-off, it would be of great assistance. This is one of the recommendations we have made.

Another recommendation that may be of interest to the committee relates to our section 949 new jurisdiction provision. This jurisdiction is helpful for taxpayers because it allows them to opt to have their appeals heard without oral hearings. They can furnish to us in writing their submissions, statements and points of view, the points of law and anything else they feel is relevant. The Commissioner will then sit down at his or her desk and draft the determination on foot of that paperwork, as per between Revenue and the taxpayer. This facility has been taken up significantly by taxpayers. However, the legislative provision as drafted does not allow us to make the final call on whether a case is determined in this way. In circumstances where we feel that a small case, for example, of under €10,000, or a non-complex case is appropriate for a section 949 new determination but the taxpayer disagrees with us, unfortunately we have to schedule a hearing and the matter will go through that process. We have asked for consideration of whether we might make that decision.