Ms Deirdre Donaghy:

The sheer volume of appeals that transferred over is the answer to that question. When the TAC was created, a large number of appeals came in.

There was also a change to the nature of the appeals process when the TAC was created. Under the Office of the Appeal Commissioners, the first line of appeal was to Revenue, which acted as a filter for many basic appeals where there was a misstated number, a clerical error or something relatively uncontroversial. Under the new system, the TAC is the first court of appeal and everything must be appealed to the commission within 30 days of a notice. There has been a significant increase in the number of appeals coming in but many of them turn out to be minor issues that are resolved between the taxpayer and Revenue. This has given rise to a backlog. We carried out a review to point to where greater resources were needed and the purpose of this Bill is to assist in pulling in those resources.