Michael Conaghan (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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14. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide a breakdown of the revenue lost through tax fraud by category in 2012 and every year since 2007. [43864/13]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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It is not clear what the Deputy has in mind when he refers to tax fraud by category, but it is widely accepted that there is no absolute and comprehensive way to measure the potential State revenues lost through tax non-compliance. However, that which can be measured is the tax, together with associated interest and penalties, recovered by the Revenue Commissioners from the compliance interventions carried out by their officials. I must emphasise, however, Revenue’s compliance interventions target all forms of tax non-compliance, which can include innocent error, technical misinterpretations as well as fraudulent behaviours like deliberate overstatement of expenses and suppression of income. The yield, incorporating tax, interest and penalties, derived from Revenue’s compliance interventions since 2007 may be summarised as follows –

Table 1: Audit & Compliance Interventions 2007 – 2012

I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that Revenue compliance interventions in 2012 gave rise to a total yield of €492.4m of which €359.1m derived from Revenue audits and €133.3m from cases that did not require a Revenue audit. Table 2 below sets out a breakdown of the various types of compliance interventions undertaken by Revenue in 2012 (with 2011 comparables).

Table 2: Extract from Revenue’s 2012 Annual Report which sets out the classification of compliance interventions currently in use in Revenue.

As to the various categories of business or income types that gave rise to the yield successfully recovered during Revenue audits carried out in 2012, the Table below provides the relevant details:-

Table 3: Categories of Business/Income Type where tax recovered from Revenue audits conducted in 2012

In the time available, it has not been possible for Revenue to provide a similar Table to that set out at Table 3 above to show a breakdown by business/income type of Revenue’s risk management interventions undertaken in 2012. However, I am informed that the Revenue Commissioners will write to the Deputy separately and will supply such a Table as soon as possible.

I am further informed by the Revenue Commissioners that a detailed breakdown per category similar to that for 2012 is not centrally captured or maintained as a matter of course and a breakdown by category for 2007 to 2011 is not feasible without an extensive investigation of Revenue records.

As the Deputy may be aware, I have also previously advised the House that based on a survey in respect of 2012 carried out for the Revenue Commissioners and the Health Services Executive found that the level of consumption of illicit cigarettes would indicate a notional loss of the order of €240 million in excise duty and VAT in that year, if the consumption of illegal cigarettes were replaced fully by taxed consumption.