Mr. Brian Keegan:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to contribute to its work on this Bill. Finance Bills are often associated in the public mind with the question of how much tax gets collected. This proposed Bill is no less important because it focuses on how tax in dispute is to be collected. The Office of the Revenue Commissioners has, under the Ministers and Secretaries Acts, an unusual degree of latitude in the conduct of its business. An efficient and effective mechanism for the resolution of disputes between Revenue and taxpayers is, therefore, essential. This Bill redefines how the mechanism should work.

My organisation represents the 40,000 or so accountants working in Ireland, many of whom are involved directly with the operation of the tax system. We had been making the case, long before the consultations in 2013 which preceded this Bill, that the Office of the Appeal Commissioners must be organised in a cost efficient manner. The appeals process should be informal and easily accessed by taxpayers. Tax is a cost to the taxpayer as is the tax compliance process. A remedy for overcharged tax which itself is too costly is no remedy nor is the necessity from time to time to make an appeal confined only to business or to the self-employed taxpayer. All taxpayers need a right of recourse, whether their appeal concerns a matter as complex as their trading status, or a matter as apparently straightforward as a local property tax postponement.

The key criterion for evaluating this Bill, which creates a new tax appeals commission, is straightforward. Will a taxpayer be able to remedy an incorrect assessment or resolve a difference of opinion with the Office of the Revenue Commissioners without undue delay or cost using this new commission? If the answer is "Yes", then all else being equal, the legislation should proceed. A new tax appeals commission will not eliminate the adversarial nature of the tax collection process, nor should it. It will also not result in the simplification of the tax process. However, the legislation underpinning the new commission should attempt to avoid two major pitfalls.

The first of these pitfalls is that delay gets built into the system.

In this regard, it would appear that the commissioners will have extensive powers to determine the conduct and timing of appeals. The second matter to be avoided is undue secrecy, while having proper regard to the privacy and confidentiality of the taxpayer's affairs. A major drawback of the current system is the lack of clarity on matters and outcomes already considered by the Appeal Commissioners. The proposed new regime has provision to reduce, if not entirely eliminate, the waste associated with rehearings on similar issues, coupled with measures to make the precedence value of previous determinations more accessible. The heads of the Bill we have been asked to consider for this meeting reflect genuine attempts to avoid these two pitfalls. We will be happy to explore these points further with the committee over the course of the discussions.

Many taxpayers have in the past opted to avail of professional representation when dealing with matters coming before the Appeal Commissioners. There has been a tendency in recent Finance Bills to favour the legal profession over representatives from other professions when acting on behalf of taxpayers. For example, members of the legal profession do not have the same obligations to report tax avoidance schemes to Revenue and while Revenue has the power to report misconduct to the professional accountancy bodies as represented by the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies - Ireland, CCAB-I, my organisation, this power does not extend to similar reporting in regard to the legal profession. We would be keen to see that this thread of preference would not get extended into the current Bill.

We believe that the type of legislative process currently being exemplified - legislation produced following public consultation with the heads of the Bill being discussed at Oireachtas committee as we have today - contributes to the formulation of good and consistent law and we are happy to contribute to the debate.