Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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69. To ask the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Question No. 140 of 14 January 2015, if further investigation has been conducted with regard to the targeting of Irish businesses and small and medium enterprises by scam marketing companies offering to obtain a valid Value Added Tax number against an advance payment; the advice provided by the European Union Commission on this matter; if there have been any further moves at European Union level to clamp down on this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12383/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As advised by the Revenue Commissioners in January, there is currently no official EU VAT register and only national tax administrations have the right to issue a VAT number.

Any unsolicited correspondence received from unknown or suspicious sources in relation to VAT registration numbers should be brought to the attention of the Revenue Commissioners.

The Revenue Commissioners advise that if companies are unsure about any such documentation they receive, there are a few simple steps that are advisable to take:

- Check the sender's email address tallies with a trusted organisation's website address, in this case, the Commission.

- Check the email is sent from a verifiable address.

- Check the email uses your proper name and not a non-specific greeting like "dear customer".

- Check that where a prominent website link is used that this has not been forged to make it look similar to a prominent website. Even a single character's difference means a different website.

- Beware of a request for personal information such as user name, password or bank details.

- Beware of an email when you were not expecting to get an email from the company that appears to have sent it.