Revenue returns - Report the tax cheats

By increasing its audit activity by 20%, the Revenue Commissioners collected an extra €520m in tax and penalties last year.

They are due some qualified congratulations for this but the question — why wasn’t this done before? — must be asked.

This is a significant figure — €10m a week — and reminds us that tax evasion is theft from the central kitty that supports the services we all use.

There has been a cultural sea change regarding social welfare fraud. Now many more people are happy to report those they believe are cheating the system. Maybe we should adopt the same attitude to tax cheats and report what is, after all, just stealing from society.