Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 15 November 2018

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 9: Office of the Revenue Commissioners
Chapter 17: Revenue's Progress in Tackling Tobacco Smuggling
Chapter 18: Management of High Wealth Individuals' Tax Liabilities
Chapter 19: Corporation Tax Losses

9:00 am

Mr. Niall Cody:

I do not have that. I might have it by the end of the meeting. Increasingly, in the context of HWIs, we probably look at profile interview type process. They tend to be technical. They tend not to be investigations because with investigations one has to have significant evidence of tax evasion. It is certainly not a feature of HWIs. They may engage in tax planning and tax management but tax evasion is not something that is in that sphere. I have those figures now. In 2017, there were five investigations, 17 audits and 13 profile interviews. The target was 105 aspect queries but we closed 1,300 where we would look at some aspect of it such as their capital allowances. We would have carried out 1,158 appraisals. Appraisals are when we appraise the case but we do not make contact with the taxpayer or their agent.