Tax helpline operator Abtran paid almost €20m by Revenue since 2013

Accenture received €17.8m from Revenue last year for providing external IT resources

Outsourcing firm Abtran has recently secured work from the HSE in the battle against Covid-19 by helping with contact tracing during the third wave of the pandemic.
Outsourcing firm Abtran has recently secured work from the HSE in the battle against Covid-19 by helping with contact tracing during the third wave of the pandemic.

Outsourcing firm Abtran, which operates the helpline for the State’s Local Property Tax (LPT), last year received fees from the Revenue Commissioners of €1.5 million.

New figures, all including VAT, provided by Revenue show that since March 2013, the Cork-headquartered firm has received fees totalling €19.7 million for the operation of the LPT.

The €1.5 million paid last year follows €1.9 million paid to Abtran in 2019.

Abtran – which employs 1,600 people – has recently secured work from the Health Service Executive in the battle against Covid-19 by helping with contact tracing during the third wave of the pandemic.

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As part of a separate contract last year, Abtran received more than €890,000 for its work from the National Transport Authority on ticketing solutions and payment security for BusConnects, mainly under the heading of “next-generation ticketing”.

Revenue last year transferred €480 million in LPT to the Local Government Fund and the compliance rate last year was 94.4 per cent.

Other companies

Figures show that the big winner last year in terms of Revenue Commissioners’ payments was Accenture, which received €17.8 million for providing external IT resources.

This followed Accenture Ireland Ltd receiving payments of €12.2 million from Revenue in 2019.

Deloitte Ireland LLP received €13.15 million in 2020 for providing external IT resources to Revenue. This followed a payout to the company by Revenue of €11.59 million in 2019.

Version 1 Software received €8 million for providing external IT resources and this followed a payout of €6.34 million in 2019.

Revenue is one of An Post’s biggest customers and last year it paid out €8.433 million to An Post for postal services.

Gordon Deegan

Gordon Deegan

Gordon Deegan is a contributor to The Irish Times