Ms Josephine Feehily:

I do not particularly want to be in a position of enforcing any tax. Our tax system is a self-assessment system and if it is not backed up with enforcement, across all the taxes, we have a non-compliance problem, which will get worse.

The strong message we will be sending out to people is that the most sensible thing to do is fill in the return. The legislation provides for a range of deferrals. That is a policy matter; obviously, it is not for me. I remind people, and I will be reminding people in the categories the Deputy mentioned, that if they have not sent back their return on time we will be writing to social welfare recipients reminding them that they had deferral options. I understand the Deputy does not want me to say this but I need to say it because critical to our fairness approach is to remind people whom we know are on low income because we have the welfare file that they have a deferral option and to claim it they must send in the form. I do not want to get to the point of mandatory action. The strategy is for them to send in the form, claim their deferral if they are on low income, and they will qualify. That will ensure we do not have to get to the place the Deputy is discussing.