The Exchequer will receive a substantial windfall as more than 15,000 holders of offshore accounts stepped forward by last night's deadline to regularise their affairs. Dominic Coyle reports
Frantic activity as the deadline approached saw 7,000 people make contact during working hours yesterday despite the postal dispute.
Revenue authorities expect the number to rise as people continued to fax or drop notification forms through the letter boxes of tax offices around the State up to the midnight deadline.
Revenue chairman Mr Frank Daly last Friday suggested an upper limit of 10,000 on the number of people likely to notify the tax authorities of their intention to make voluntary disclosures. At the time, the number of disclosures stood at 6,500.
Foreign subsidiaries of the 10 leading banks in the State sent up to 120,000 letters to customers with Irish addresses in recent weeks, notifying them of the Revenue's intention to conduct a "comprehensive investigation" of accounts held outside the State by Irish residents.
Tax officials have been loath to put a figure on how much they might expect to collect as a result of the offshore accounts' investi-gation. Appearing before the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts last week, Mr Daly acknowledged that the inquiry could yield a bonanza of up to €1 billion, though he quickly added that he did not wish to speculate.
The Revenue has already netted €45 million from 1,250 Irish residents with accounts in Irish Permanent's Isle of Man unit. On that basis, the Revenue could expect to take €540 million from the 15,000 people offering to make voluntary settlements.
However, the figure could be substantially higher. A similar investigation into Irish residents' holdings in the Bank of Ireland Trust Company in Jersey yielded €105 million from 254 people, an average of €413,000 a head. Whatever the precise figure, it will take a substantial chunk out of projected Exchequer borrowing of €2.8 billion this year forecast on Budget day.
That is before the Revenue investigators turn their attention to those who failed to make a voluntary declaration by yesterday's deadline. A similar inquiry into bogus non-resident accounts caught almost 8,000 tax evaders on top of the 3,000 who came forward to voluntarily settle their liabilities.
To date, the tax authorities have collected just over €1 billion from a series of special investigations in recent years into bogus non-resident accounts, the Ansbacher deposits and the National Irish Bank CMI bonds.
The Revenue last night strongly denied reports that just seven people will be manning the investigation into improprieties in the management of offshore accounts.
Mr Daly has stated that the pursuit of money and other assets held abroad will become a major focus for the organisation now that the voluntary disclosure deadline has passed. And a spokesman said: "The reference to seven people being overwhelmed by this investigation is nonsense. They may be the people driving this process but the whole organisation will be putting its efforts behind them.
"We will probably have 1,000 people working on it at various stages."
People who have filed formal "Notice of Intention to Make a Qualifying Disclosure of an Offshore Tax Default" now have 60 days in which to work out how much they owe in tax, interest and penalties and hand the money over to the Revenue.
Those who have not availed of the window for voluntary disclosure will be pursued through the courts by the Revenue for details of their accounts and the origin of any money in them. They face increased penalties, with final bills possibly three or four times the sum of the original tax due. They also run the risk of having their names published and even of criminal prosecution.
Revenue stressed last night that students and others who held insignificant amounts in "convenience accounts" in the UK had nothing to fear. "Our target is people who knew what they were doing and who deliberately decided to conceal money outside the State," he said.