Revenue Commissioners 'has no responsibility' for bogus self-employment

Niall Cody said a 1997 decision by Revenue, which deemed all couriers to be self-employed in the interests of “uniformity” and which still stands today, had been made in order “to ensure that motorcycle couriers were brought into the tax net”. Photo: Collins

The head of the Revenue Commissioners has acknowledged that bogus self-employment is “absolutely” an issue for workers, but said his body has no responsibility for regulating it.

Asked at a hearing of the Public Accounts Committee about the trend, which sees people who, in effect, work directly for one company but are treated as self-employed, Niall Cody said: “I absolutely accept the changes in casualisation, the gig economy, the growth in precarious employment, but we are the tax agents.