ANALYSIS: Data the Revenue will receive after September 15th deadline will build clearer picture of evasion, writes Laura Slattery
HOT MONEY will be easier to track down from September 15th, when the Revenue Commissioners receives its first batch of names and addresses of large-scale deposit holders.
But before it begins its next hunt, armed with this new information, the Revenue is giving tax evaders a chance to give themselves up.
Although it's not a full tax amnesty, the voluntary disclosure scheme announced yesterday is a chance for people who hold more than €100,000 in undeclared income on deposit to avail of a much better deal than the alternative: possible prosecution.
Voluntary disclosure means "substantially mitigated" penalties for underpaid tax, no publication of their name and settlement amount in the tax defaulters' list and no investigation into their "tax issues" with a view to prosecution. As Brian Keegan of the Institute of Chartered Accounts in Ireland (ICAI) phrased it yesterday, "you get an opportunity to declare your sins".
The offer to make a confession closes on September 15th for people who have more than €100,000 in untaxed income on deposit, or as the Revenue put it yesterday, "the shutters are coming down".
The window is closing fast, but the Revenue says tax practitioners and tax evaders alike have been given reasonable notice.
Understandably, honest taxpayers may feel unnerved by the idea that their bank will pass on their personal data to the Revenue Commissioners so it can conduct a mass trawling exercise of suspicious lump sums.
Whereas certain past Revenue investigations sought to identify people who had evaded paying Deposit Interest Retention Tax (Dirt), from later this year it will be payment of Dirt itself that allows the Revenue to identify other forms of tax evasion: income tax, capital gains tax, capital acquisitions tax - anything that should have been paid but wasn't.
But €100,000 isn't the only magic number. Banks and other financial institutions are required to send on details of all accounts where Dirt of more than €635 was paid in 2005 and 2006 by September 15th under regulations introduced earlier this month. This means that people who held some €20,000 will find themselves caught up in the Revenue's fishing net.
As both the ICAI's Keegan and Mark Redmond of the Irish Taxation Institution pointed out yesterday, with every Revenue probe there is inevitably collateral damage. Innocent taxpayers get scary letters in the post and must convince the Revenue that everything is above board.
Keegan gives the example of people who sell their house and keep the money on deposit before they use it to buy a new house. They could fall within the scope of any future Revenue probes.
But for the Revenue, the new information it will receive from financial institutions is a vital "piece in the jigsaw" that it can use to build a clear picture of the scale of tax evasion in the Republic.
