€418m in refunds paid out to taxpayers
Senior officials appeared before the Oireachtas yesterday to defend against criticisms that Revenue was not doing enough to tackle underclaiming of allowances and reliefs by taxpayers.
The figures released show the average payout was €624 per tax payer in 2006.
Estimates vary for unclaimed allowances such as medical expenses, bin charges, rent supplement and trade union subscriptions, but Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton said the total figure could be as high as €350m per annum.
Committee chairman Sean Fleming (FF) claimed that the Revenue could owe citizens up to €45m in unpaid reliefs for trade union dues alone.
Revenue assistant secretary Norman Gillander and a senior colleague, Declan Gibney, made a spirited defence.
In addition to paying over 600,000 refunds each year, Mr Gillander pointed to a huge volume of correspondence and personal contact with customers: including 50,000 phone calls per week, and 1.9m pieces of post in relation to PAYE workers every year.
Mr Gillander also disputed claims made by the Irish Taxation Institute last week that its forms were too complicated.
One of the forms referred to last week was used by only 5% of taxpayers, typically higher earners, he added. He described the medical claim form, meanwhile, as a “simple one-pager”.
Revenue had gradually moved away from form-filling to easier means of dealing with tax issues, such as telephone contact, personal visits, and online access.
Younger taxpayers could also use a mobile phone text service, he said, adding that 555 texts were received by Revenue in December.
Another innovation is the imminent opening of “internet-café-type” facility for taxpayers at the Revenue Commissioners’ O’Connell Street office in Dublin.
Web-based information is available in Polish, Lithuanian, and two dialects of Chinese.
Mr Gibney said people just have not claimed what is owed to them, because of inertia, fears of officialdom, or lack of comfort with numbers.
“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink,” said Mr Gibney.
Mr Fleming countered: “I do not think that you have been bringing the horse to water.”
