Ex-HSE chief’s name on tax forms 6 years after he left

More than six years after he left the Health Service Executive (HSE), it’s now deceased former chief Kevin Kelly continued to be named in tax-related documents as the HSE employee making payments to family doctors for treating medical card patients.

Despite leaving the HSE in 2005, Mr Kelly was until at least mid-December still being named as the HSE’s interim chief executive on forms issued by the Revenue Commissioners.

The document in which Mr Kelly features is an F45 form which outlines payments by the HSE to individuals contracted to it to provide professional services, including GPs for services under a variety of primary care reimbursement schemes.

The form also details the amount of tax deducted from each payment and can be used by GPs to set-off against final tax liabilities at the end of a tax year. It can also be used to obtain tax credits or refunds, and is described on the Government-backed website, BASIS (Business Access to State Information and Services), as a “valuable document”.

Mr Kelly, who passed away on January 4 last, and who left the HSE on August 15, 2005, was still being named up to mid-December as the HSE’s “accountable person” in respect of deciding on the amounts of payments to individual GPs as well as the amount of tax to be deducted.

Mr Kelly was interim chief executive of the HSE from January 1 to August 15, 2005, before being replaced by Professor Brendan Drumm.

When asked by the Irish Examiner why the name of a deceased former employee was still being used on tax-related forms which doctors must retain in case required by Revenue for verification, the HSE said it had “corrected this typographical error as soon as it came to our attention”.

Given Mr Kelly’s name was still being used on F45 forms up to the middle of last month, it took more than six years for the “typographical error” to hit home.

The Irish Examiner had contacted the Revenue Commissioners in relation to the error the previous week to ask if the validity of the F45 was compromised through use of Mr Kelly’s name as the HSE’s “accountable person” in relation to these payments.

A spokeswoman said they “cannot comment on the tax affairs of individuals or organisations”. However she said for the purpose of this particular tax — known as professional services withholding tax (PSWT) — the HSE, as the public body making the payments, was the “accountable person”. Asked if it was a case of sloppy administration, the Revenue spokeswoman did not comment other than to say there were “no implications”.

The HSE said the organisation, and “not an individual named person” was responsible for the PSWT.

“We are satisfied that there is no issue with the integrity of the F45 documents issued,” the spokeswoman said.