Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 82: To ask the Minister for Finance the number of people affected by the imposition of penalties when calculating tax liabilities for deceased persons and their estates in each of the past ten years. [17147/08]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 83: To ask the Minister for Finance the amount of money the Revenue Commissioners have taken in as a result of penalties applied when calculating tax liabilities for deceased persons and their estates in each of the past ten years. [17148/08]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 82 and 83 together.

I assume the Deputy is referring to the recent change of practice announced by the Revenue Commissioners in March regarding the settlement of audits where there is a tax liability and where the taxpayer is deceased. From 18 March 2008 the imposition of penalties in tax settlements involving a deceased taxpayer under the Revenue audit programme will depend on whether or not a settlement is reached in the case prior to the death of the taxpayer. Where an agreement is reached and the penalty is unpaid at the time of death, Revenue will continue to proceed against the personal representatives of the deceased for the recovery of the penalty in the normal way. Otherwise, when no agreement is in place prior to the death of the taxpayer, Revenue will not seek to recover a penalty. I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that detailed audit statistics to the level of identifying deceased taxpayers can be produced for the years from 2006 onwards only, and these are set out below. Prior to 2006, other than fairly basic statistics, a largely manual system of audit reporting was in place. Any attempt to capture the data sought by the Deputy for the years prior to would require the manual examination of ten of thousands of audit records at a disproportionate cost.

Since 2006, figures are available as follows:

In 2006, Revenue settled 38 cases involving deceased taxpayers collecting penalties of € 1.9 million.

In 2007, the figures were 16 cases and just under €1 million.

In 2008 so far, there are just 4 cases with a total of €11,000.

Revenue's audit programme is a key tools in supporting tax compliance and fairness in the tax system: 13,600 and 14,300 audits were carried out in 2006 and 2007 respectively.