Paul McGrath (Westmeath, Fine Gael)

Of the persons who make claims for a review of their tax affairs for the previous tax year and who look for a balancing statement, 75% of the claims are positive and the person gets a refund. How many of those successful claims were spotted by Revenue or are any spotted by it? Were any refunds made on Revenue's initiative? Why is it that the computer system does not display such overpayments?

Why was a change made in the system which means a taxpayer cannot claim for overpayment for in excess of four years? The reclaim period has been cut to a four-year period. However, Revenue can pursue a taxpayer for as far back as it wants. Why has the Minister cut off the making of retrospective claims in excess of four years?

The Minister may have inadvertently misled the House when he said that Revenue turned around claims for balancing statements very quickly. There is a delay of at least ten weeks in one of the offices I know. Perhaps the Minister does not consider ten weeks to be a long delay but I do. The Minister should correct the record at some stage.

In many cases, overpayments relate to the fact that people do not claim for allowances to which they are entitled. Would the Minister not target some of those people? For example, 105,000 people make claims relating to medical expenses, which represents only 7% of households. Surely there are more people than that who could claim. This area could be targeted.

Some 90,000 people make claims for rent relief. I accept the Minister changed the allowance this year but if he made it more attractive to claim against private rented accommodation surely the scheme would be self-financing and there would be a gain in terms of bringing more people into the tax net.

A total of 75,000 customers have claimed relief on bin charges, which is only 5% of the total population. What is the other 95% doing with their rubbish? Surely people should be almost automatically entitled to claim for something like that because virtually every household has some kind of refuse collection. Does the Minister agree that he should target these kinds of areas? He should be proactive in ensuring taxpayers are not overpaying.

See this speech in context