A Revenue spokesman has described as "nonsense" the claim that Irish people travelling to the US on shopping trips have carte blanche to bring as many items home as they please.
The spokesman also claimed that few people coming into Irish airports from the US were exceeding the legal limit of €175 of general goods including clothes.
According to research carried out for Nuacht TG4, 255,000 passengers flew into Ireland from US cities between November 1st and December 31st yet no goods were seized during that time.
Some €87.87 in duty and €705.34 in VAT were received in respect of declarations in Dublin Airport during this period. A total of €369 in duty and VAT was received from declarations in Shannon Airport.
But the Revenue Commissioners believe that no undeclared goods over the €175 limit were smuggled into the country.
"While we will keep it under review, there is definitely not a problem with it. We carried out tests on some of those flights before Christmas and it showed that very few people were over the limit and those who were over, were declaring their goods," said the spokesman.
"It is nonsense to suggest that shoppers have a carte blanche but we deem those flights from the US to be low risk," he added.