Incorrect tax forms have been sent to more than 100,000 employers by the Revenue Commissioners, listing employees who may have already left.

A Year 2000 programming difficulty led to the problem with P35L forms, which are sent to employers so they can reconcile their records of tax paid by employees with those of the Revenue.

Employers who deal with the Revenue electronically have not been affected. Such employers account for 75 per cent of all employees, according to a Revenue spokesman.

However, printed forms for the year to April 5th, 2001, which were sent to 107,000 employers, list employees who had left in previous years. Forms which were to be sent to a further 30,000 employers were stopped before they were sent after the difficulty was noticed.

Of the 107,000 forms issued, 7,000 employers with high staff turnovers are being advised that replacement forms will be issued and to ignore the forms already issued. Of these the 1,000 with the highest number of employees have been telephoned by the Revenue. Of the remaining 100,000 employers affected by the difficulty, the Revenue believes the impact will only be negligible.