Written answers

Tuesday, 18 December 2012

Photo of Eoghan MurphyEoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

To ask the Minister for Finance if he will consider modifying the various statements issued by the Revenue to persons so that these would state the total tax paid by a person as a percentage of their income as well as providing the various breakdowns under the different headings. [56488/12]

Photo of Michael NoonanMichael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am assuming that the Deputy's question is linked to the proposals contained in the Tax Transparency Bill which he introduced in the Dáil on 29 March last. In my contribution to the debate during the Second Stage on 9 November 2012 I referred to the costs and extensive administrative changes needed to advance the proposals contained in the Bill at the level of individual taxpayers. The position is that the Revenue Commissioners do not issue any statements to the vast majority of taxpayers on the lines suggested and as part of their modernisation programme, are actively working to reduce the incidence of such statements. For example, while taxpayers in the self assessment system, mainly consisting of the self-employed, are currently provided with an annual Notice of Assessment form by Revenue, it simply sets out what the taxpayer has filed in his/her annual return of income. Such taxpayers are in a better position than Revenue to calculate tax and other deductions as a percentage of income. Furthermore, Finance Act 2012 introduced provisions, with effect from October 2014, removing the requirement for Revenue to issue an annual Notice of Assessment form to each taxpayer on receipt of their tax return.

For taxpayers from whom tax is collected through the Pay As You Earn system, the Form P21 Balancing Statement, setting out the amount of taxable income and the amount of tax paid, is issued almost exclusively at the request of the taxpayer, often to provide evidence of income for other parts of the public sector. Revenue is working with two public sector bodies to reduce the need to issue these statements by providing information directly, which has been outlined for the Deputy in the reply to a related Parliamentary Question today. The Deputy will be aware that for PAYE taxpayers, the Form P60 they receive each year from their employer or pension provider contains all the required details – income tax, PRSI, USC and in future Local Property Tax – to enable them to carry out the percentage calculation if they so wished.

To the extent that they are issued, which will decline, the statements referred to above are already very detailed documents containing significant amounts of complex information. Revenue is constantly looking at ways to make the statements shorter and easier for the taxpayer to understand. Including the type of information sought by the Deputy on these statements would involve a major re-draft of the documents concerned and would cost a significant amount of money to develop. I am not satisfied that the benefits to be derived from implementing the Deputy's proposals would outweigh the costs involved and I would have concerns that the documents would become so congested that they would be less informative for the taxpayer and would lose their impact.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.