Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 20 February 2014

Public Accounts Committee

2012 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 9 - Office of the Revenue Commissioners
Chapter 23 - Revenue Collection
Chapter 24 - Management of Revenue Debt
Chapter 25 - Taxpayer Compliance
Chapter 26 - Corporation Tax Losses
Chapter 27 - Tax Audit Settlements

12:30 pm

Ms Josephine Feehily:

I will confirm that figure. Much of the tax that comes in is from businesses that are managed and large cases. These are divided into business units by sector. Therefore, there would be a small number of cases with a team to look after them. We have a co-operative compliance regime in place which is international best practice in dealing with large businesses. Under this regime, we expect businesses to self-review. Often the engagement in the large cases division is with the chief financial officer to know if the company has carried out a self-review and ask if we can can see the paperwork. A self-review is very common in large businesses for good governance reasons, not necessarily reasons to do with us. As a result, there is a much higher proportion of unprompted disclosures. The technical complexity adjustment argument is more likely to arise in large cases. They are much more likely to engage with Revenue every year.