Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 8 December 2022

Public Accounts Committee

Vote 9 - Office of the Revenue Commissioners
2021 Report of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners
2021 Report on the Accounts of the Public Services of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 15 - Collection of VAT on e-Commerce
Chapter 16 - Revenue's Suspension of Periodic Reviews of Tax Clearance Certificates
Chapter 17 - Overstatement of Certain Unallocated Tax Deposits

9:30 am

Mr. Niall Cody:

We have had discussions about the approach to random audits various times when I have come here. There is probably scope for limited random audits in some sectors. In some ways, what we are trying to do now in our overview of some of those sectors I mentioned is to try to get a sense of the sector as a whole. To take that delivering on e-commerce piece, what we are trying to do is look at the headline of the logistics sector and track down. It is not for the purposes of establishing what the potential loss is. It is for the purposes of identifying where there are leakages from that cascade. Last year, we had the highest compliance yield in the history of the State for Revenue at €1.38 billion. There is a huge opportunity cost for us in moving from our targeted focus to a random one. I understand fully what-----