NIB may not be out of the woods yet over DIRT

It has been a good week for the Revenue Commissioners and not so good for National Irish Bank (NIB) and its customers. The Revenue announced it had collected a record £23.9 billion in taxes last year. In addition, it revealed it had netted £12.5 million from 232 of the 429 NIB customers who put their money in unauthorised offshore schemes. A further £6.5 million has been paid as an advance on liabilities by some of the remaining 198 customers and more is expected.

The bank which marketed the unauthorised accounts in the past, on the other hand, saw its profits dip more than a third to £13 million in the nine months to the end of June. Tighter margins and a rising number of bad debts have conspired to knock a sizeable hole in the Irish operations of National Australia Bank.

NIB's chief operations officer Owen Vanzuyden was upbeat about the prospects for the future but his outfit has still to reach a settlement with the Revenue on its DIRT liabilities. NIB is happy with the £1.7 million it has made provision for against the liability but the only bank to settle to date, Bank of Ireland, ended up paying substantially more than it had forecast. NIB may not be out of the woods yet.

In releasing its accounts, the Revenue said it was determined to convince compliant taxpayers that taxes were collected in a fair and even manner.