Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Obviously, the Tax Appeals Commission has no information on this, but we are asking Revenue, if it does not have information on, for example, the 5,000 cases in there, to see whether it can work on them. That is all I can say at this stage. Revenue has an idea of the amount of tax that was due, as far as it was concerned, and that arrived in the appeals office. Is that right? Then, when the cases come back out, Revenue must know because the cases will come in and out. Revenue either pays or collects the tax. Mr. Cody is the person in receipt of the information. The Tax Appeals Commission has no knowledge of this. It does not handle the tax, as in what goes in and what percentage comes back out. In other words, if 700 cases were decided last year, as the Tax Appeals Commission said, Revenue knows about the 700 and knows what it was hoping to get from those 700 when they went in. How much did Revenue actually get out of those 700? We just want to see this. It is a mechanism of knowing how this operation is working. If everything that went in came back out as it was, what is the point? If there is a change, it tells us something has happened but no one seems to have any information on this. It is akin to the Social Welfare Appeals Office. In social welfare, if somebody disputes his or her allowance or an entitlement to something and goes to the appeals office, the appeals office is there to adjudicate on A and B and reject C and D and it sends the case to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to go back and work out the figure. The Social Welfare Appeals Office does not do the calculation. It sounds as if the Tax Appeals Commission is akin to that. It is up to Revenue to work out the figure, so Revenue has the information. Has Revenue done any exercise yet on what comes in and out of the appeals office?