Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 130: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the grounds on which a form 12 may be sent by the Revenue Commissioners to a tax-payer whose only source of income is PAYE; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12923/08]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 131: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the grounds on which a form 12 may be sent to a tax-payer by the Revenue Commissioners; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12924/08]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 130 and 131 together.

I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that, under the provisions of Section 879 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, an individual must submit a return of his or her income, on a form prescribed by the Revenue Commissioners when required to do so by notice given by an inspector. Such return must be submitted within the time limit specified in the notice.

The forms prescribed by the Revenue Commissioners for the making of a tax return include a Form 11 and a Form 12. In general, a tax return made by a PAYE taxpayer is made on a Form 12. The notice requiring such an individual to submit a tax return is contained on the Form. In addition, such an individual must submit his or her tax return by 31 October in the tax year following the tax year in respect of which the return is due.

Forms 12 are issued to PAYE taxpayers on a restricted basis, based on criteria selected by the Revenue Commissioners each year and reviewed each year. The criteria include high income cases, customers with non- PAYE or trading income or who claim the higher value and more complex tax reliefs. For example, in 2007 Revenue issued Forms 12 to single people with an income exceeding €100,000 and to married couples where the combined incomes exceeded €180,000 for the previous year. In addition forms were sent to people who declared untaxed income in 2006 from a variety of sources in excess of €3,174 net. over and above their PAYE income. That included people with foreign salaries, pensions, fees and commission. PAYE taxpayers with specific levels of trading and rental/investment income also were asked to complete a Form 12. Typically in recent years, Revenue issue 40,000 – 50,000 Forms 12 and PAYE taxpayers request and complete a further 40,000 or so Form 12 returns. To put this in context, Revenue has approximately 2.5 million PAYE employments on record. The vast majority of workers never complete a Form 12 as the normal operation of PAYE accounts for their tax liability in full.