Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 94: To ask the Minister for Finance the number of IT 4, IT 32, IT 38 and CA 24 forms examined by staff of the Revenue Commissioners with a view to carrying out an audit; the number of actual audits carried out; and the yield arising for each of the years 2005 to 2011. [1850/12]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the overall approach to tackling compliance is to examine all the tax risks to the Exchequer and to make the appropriate intervention in carefully selected cases. By carefully selecting the cases for intervention, and carefully choosing the type of intervention, Revenue maximises the use of resources, and minimises the compliance burden on compliant taxpayers. Accordingly the focus of an enquiry may vary from a comprehensive look at all the taxes and duties for which a taxpayer may be liable, to a detailed look at a single tax-head, such as CAT, or to a concentration on a single issue of concern. The targeted approach uses all the information available in a case, and is supported by Revenue's automated risk management system, REAP. REAP categorises taxpayers in accordance with defined risk criteria, including specifically Capital Acquisition Tax risks. In addition all CAT return forms are screened for specific risk and evaluated for further intervention where necessary.

The relevant information on audits that is centrally available relates to the numbers of CAT, Stamp Duty and pension audits carried out in the years 2007 to 2011. These are as follows:

Corresponding figures for 2005 and 2006 are not available, and a separate breakdown of these figures for CAT audits alone is not available.

I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that, although the number of audits has fallen significantly in recent years, the REAP system enables Revenue to better target audit resources at cases more likely to achieve a yield. In addition, as noted above, the figures in the table include Stamp Duty audits, and the significant fall in Stamp Duty transactions and property values would affect the number of cases available for audit.