Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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174. To ask the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to a settlement between a State agency (details supplied) and the Revenue Commissioners; if there are any agencies under his Department’s remit that have had a similar issue or have made a settlement with the Revenue Commissioners in relation to any issue in the past five years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48023/21]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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In the absence of any reference at the Public Accounts Committee meeting on 28th September 2021 to a settlement made by the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority with the Revenue Commissioners, I am taking it that the Deputy is referring to the issue of a salary overpayment at that agency which was one of the issues discussed at the meeting.

On that basis, I can confirm that in the past five years there have been no instances of salary overpayments in the State Agencies under the aegis of my Department.

Regarding the matter of settlements with the Revenue Commissioners, the Central Bank, in October 2017, made an unprompted qualifying disclosure to the Revenue Commissioners which resulted in a request for a refund of €429,449. This was subsequently disclosed on the Central Bank’s 2018 Financial Statements (Page 204 Note 8 (iii)) which declares “Included in other income is net income of €0.4m (2017: Nil) arising from an indirect taxes review undertaken by the Central Bank and agreed with Revenue”.

There were two unprompted voluntary disclosures made by the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) to the Revenue in the last five years. In 2017, an unprompted voluntary disclosure of €0.6m was made to the Revenue with regard to the treatment of Professional Services Withholding Tax (PWST) to professional services providers that were not engaged by NAMA. A further payment of €1.9m in relation to this disclosure was made in 2021. In 2018, an unprompted voluntary disclosure of €1.9m was made to the Revenue with regard to the treatment of VAT on professional services received from outside of Ireland.