Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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270. To ask the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to the case of a person (details supplied) who has an agreement with the Revenue Commissioners regarding payment of outstanding moneys; if this matter has been passed to a debt collection agency; the status of the amounts owed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27535/17]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Revenue’s clear preference is always to engage with taxpayers and businesses and where possible to agree mutually acceptable payment arrangements in preference to deploying debt collection/enforcement sanctions. Cases are only referred to enforcement agents, including Sheriffs and external solicitors, where all attempts to engage with the taxpayer/business have failed to resolve the situation.

The person in question has a poor tax compliance record and has consistently failed to file tax returns or pay liabilities on a timely basis. Revenue has confirmed that the person did not have any payment agreement in place up to the time the debt was referred to the Sheriff on 29 June 2016 and has only very recently filed outstanding Income Tax returns in respect of 2015 and 2016.

Prior to 29 June 2016 the person had failed to respond to a number of reminder notifications from Revenue in regard to the outstanding debt. This left Revenue with no alternative but to refer the outstanding tax and associated statutory interest to the Sheriff for collection. A number of discussions subsequently took place between the Sheriff and the person but only one part payment was received in October 2016. The Sheriff had started seizure proceedings against the person in advance of the part payment being received.

The up to date position is that the person has very recently forwarded post dated cheques to the Sheriff, which do not cover the full tax, statutory interest and cost components of the overall liability. The Sheriff has temporarily suspended further action on foot of the payments to allow the person some further time to pay the remaining arrears. However it is inevitable that the enforcement action will be resumed if the remaining debt is not paid or if the post dated cheques are not honoured.