Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 167: To ask the Minister for Finance, further to Question No. 269 of 15 February 2005, the technical difficulties which have been experienced; if he will elaborate on these; the steps being taken to resolve this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6096/05]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that a project was commenced on a pilot basis to capture information from income tax and corporation tax returns for the purpose of raising tax assessments. The pilot project in relation to income tax experienced some technical difficulties not related to the external contractor and steps are being taken to resolve these. The essential difficulties were technical issues regarding the speed of transfer of captured data from the external contractor to Revenue, amendments to computer software rules relating to the validation of information on return forms and amendments to computer software rules used to generate computer assessments.

Work to resolve these issues involving software development and testing is ongoing. It is estimated that this work will be completed by the end of March 2005. In the meantime, the income tax forms included in the pilot project are being assessed to tax in the normal manner. Overall, in excess of 92% of paper income tax returns submitted to Revenue have now been processed.