Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe has confirmed that the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has this year made a payment of €1.9 million to Revenue arising from an unprompted voluntary disclosure.
He said Nama has made payments totalling €4.4 million concerning two separate unprompted voluntary disclosures over the past five years.
In a written Dáil reply to Dara Calleary of Fianna Fáil, Mr Donohoe said the voluntary disclosure concerning this year's €1.9 million payment was made to Revenue with regard to the treatment of Professional Services Withholding Tax (PWST) to service providers that were not engaged by Nama.
He said the €1.9 million payout followed a €600,000 payment to Revenue in 2017 concerning the same unprompted disclosure with regard to the treatment of PWST.
A Nama spokesman said on Friday: “The matter arose as Nama settled payments to third parties for professional services engaged by debtors and receivers on secured assets. Nama identified the issue proactively and brought it to Revenue’s attention.”
Mr Donohoe said the other unprompted voluntary disclosure was made in 2017 and concerned the payment of €1.9 million to Revenue with regard to the treatment of VAT on professional services received from outside of Ireland.
HSE correction
In a separate Dáil reply on the issue of settlements with Revenue by State agencies, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly told Mr Calleary that the HSE made a self-correction disclosure and payment, including interest, of €3.17 million to Revenue in September 2020.
Mr Donnelly said this followed a review that the HSE conducted itself for 2019. He said that in each of the past five years, the HSE has carried out a significant self-review of tax compliance with external specialist tax assistance.
“These self-reviews are conducted on an agreed risk based assessment with Revenue under their co-operative compliance framework.” He said the level of review for 2019 was affected by Covid-19 staffing requirements, and it was agreed with Revenue to perform a review focused on specific areas which gave rise to the significant liabilities in previous years.
