Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 21 February 2013

Public Accounts Committee

2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 9 - Office of the Revenue Commissioners
Chapter 7 - Audit of Revenue 2011
Chapter 8 - Revenue Outturn 2011
Chapter 9 - Revenue Debt Collection
Chapter 10 - Increasing Tax Compliance

10:40 am

Ms Josephine Feehily:

In accordance with our normal customer service standard we have a presumption of honesty. That presumption of honesty extends to all taxes. The property tax is a self-assessment tax, so what we have said again and again, and the Minister has repeated this on our behalf, is that in cases in which a person approaches this honesty, we will accept the valuation. We always do. When we come to do compliance, which will certainly not be this year, we will be looking at outliers. There is no doubt that we will look at outliers, as we would not be doing our job otherwise.