How to avoid tax: living in Dublin helps

TAX dodgers living in Dublin are the least likely to be caught by the Revenue Commissioners, an Irish Examiner investigation has revealed.

Defaulters living in Kerry, Tipperary, Monaghan, Kilkenny, Waterford, Sligo, Roscommon and Limerick are four times more likely to be found out.

An analysis of all 2,122 tax defaulters named and shamed by the Revenue from October 1, 2001, to June 30 of this year has uncovered significant anomalies in the geographic distribution of tax defaulters whose names are published by the Revenue.

However, the high number of rural tax dodgers is expected to fall following the biggest reorganisation of the Revenue Commissioners in the history of the State, Revenue sources believe. Dublin is being subdivided into regions to reflect the focused operations of regional tax offices and this is expected to reveal more tax cheats in the capital.

The figures demonstrate that tax dodgers in Dublin are the least likely to be named by the Revenue while Kerry-based defaulters’ details are the most likely to be published.

Just 2.19 tax defaulters for every 10,000 people living in Dublin have been named and shamed by the Revenue since October 2001, compared to 12.83 in Kerry.

Insiders say the manner in which the Revenue was structured led to the problem. However, the Revenue said there was no particular reason for the extremely low number of tax defaulters from Dublin being named.

“The high incidence of cases from particular counties on the list might be related to any number of factors, including the fact that the Bogus Non-Resident (BNR) schemes were particularly prevalent in some regions of the country,” a spokesman for the Revenue Commissioners said.

“The period covered (by the Irish Examiner study) spans the period when the BNR campaign had been at its height. It should also be noted that the number of published cases is always a small proportion of the total audit settlements in any given period.”

The analysis of the 2,122 defaulters who paid €262.33 million over the period of the survey shows that farmers are the single biggest group to be named, followed by company directors, retailers, publicans and builders.

Some 467 farmers paid €35.87m in the three years investigated, an average of €76,805 each. A spokesman for the IFA said the Revenue Commissioners were on record as saying they were satisfied with the level of compliance in the industry. The spokesman said farmers did not consider themselves to be unfairly targeted by the taxman.

A total of 274 company directors paid €56.05m, an average of €204,545 each. And €28.07m was paid by 175 retailers, an average of €160,423 each.

Some €16.65m was paid by 170 publicans, an average of €97,932 each. The Vintners Federation of Ireland refused to comment on the figures.