Vol. 384 No. 1
asked the Minister for Finance the amount of arrears of PRSI, health, training, and income levy paid to his Department under the Social Welfare (Interest) Regulations, 1988; the numbers of employers, by category, involved; the amount of interest charge waived; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
7.
asked the Minister for Finance if, in view of the huge sums raised by the tax amnesty, he intends to introduce new procedures to ensure that such huge legally due sums are collected promptly in future; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
63.
asked the Minister for Finance the likely annual increment in income tax arising from the disclosure of income during the tax amnesty; and if he will make a statement on the outcome of the amnesty.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 5, 7 and 63 together.
I have already provided all the particulars at present available concerning the outcome of the amnesty in a written answer to a number of questions on Tuesday. As I explained in that answer, the Revenue Commissioners are currently engaged in the task of crediting to taxpayers' accounts all the payments received under the amnesty. Until this work is completed, it will not be possible to produce a breakdown of the taxes, contributions and levies to which the moneys relate, the number of employers who availed of the scheme or the amount of interest waived under the scheme.
Similarly, only when the work is completed will it be possible to have firm estimates of the amount of taxes still outstanding or the ongoing benefit to the Exchequer arising from the increased levels of income disclosed under the amnesty. The preliminary indications to date are that the bulk of the receipts are of a once-off nature and that any ongoing benefit will be small.
I have already made clear on a number of occasions that it is the Government's intention in the post-amnesty period that the full range of powers available to the Revenue Commissioners will be applied rigorously to prevent a further build-up of arrears. The amnesty was introduced so as to give defaulters a final opportunity to declare previously undisclosed liabilities and to bring their tax affairs up to date before the onset of this new tough régime.
The sanctions available to the Revenue Commissioners include the services of the Revenue sheriffs, the new power of attachment of financial assets introduced in this year's Finance Act and the imposition of a surcharge on late returns of income. In addition, the new self-assessment system will enable a much higher proportion of Revenue's resources to be concentrated on tax evasion. I wish to emphasise that it is the intention of the Government that all the powers of the Revenue Commissioners will be applied stringently and without exception against defaulters.
I call Deputy McDowell who has tabled a Priority Question on this matter.
The information to which the Minister referred was provided by way of a written answer and has, unfortunately, somewhat superseded my question. The information yielded the simple fact that what we read in the papers is still the case, that £500 million was the approximate figure placed by the Minister on the value of the yield. Surely it must be possible at this stage to arrive at some view as to the value of the interest foregone. If people are taking a close interest in the fruits of the amnesty, surely it must be possible to see to what extent it has disclosed heretofore unknown sources of income so that, in planning next year's budget, the Minister will be aware of an incremental flow of income which will be available to him. I know that these things are incapable of precise estimation but I ask the Minister to give more detailed information instead of saying that all these things are hard to estimate.
I am saying that because it is the factual position at present. There must have been an administrative nightmare involved in dealing with 170,000 queries and about 150,000 payments either personally delivered or mailed to the Revenue Commissioners in the final week before the expiry of the scheme. It did not all happen since last January, the vast bulk came in about three or four days of the final week. Everyone should know that and I am glad of the opportunity to put the record straight in relation to the information I have. I do not intend to withhold relevant information on any of the questions which were raised on Tuesday or today. It has also emerged that 80,000 of the payments were accompanied by inadequate directions as to how the money should be credited, which involved an enormous amount of administrative detail and contact with individual taxpayers. As I said, it is not possible to be more explicit at this stage. However, in so far as the Government and I are concerned, coming to the end of the year and making preparations for next year's budget, we are anxiously awaiting this information and the Revenue Commissioners and all involved are diligently ensuring that the information will be available as soon as possible. I hope to have all the details necessary before the end of the year.
The Minister says that the product of the amnesty in relation to future tax years is small — I accept that — and that the yield has not been from what is termed colloquially the black economy as much as from the grey economy, the known but underpaying economy, and that as a consequence all the money estimated to be in the black economy stands relatively untouched by the amnesty. In relation to the full powers which the Minister says will now be deployed with severity by the Revenue Commissioners, will the Minister confirm that not a single case so far has arisen in which the power of attachment, which he asked this House to give the Revenue Commissioners in the last Finance Act, has been used?
We waited for many years to take the action we took this year and it might be no harm to put on record the position regarding the 1986 amnesty; 36 people availed of it with £500,000 accruing to the Exchequer. In the 1976 amnesty 370 people paid £1.5 million. Maybe there are people who would like to think that we should not have done anything about bringing in the money, but because we have had such great success, it is a pity that people are making critical remarks about what has been done. We will not know for sure until the end of the year how much of the money is related to the black economy. Of course there is bound to be some. It was also important to bring the grey economy up to date and, now that we have done this, it is important to have the resources to keep it up to date. In so far as the implementation of the powers we have is concerned, the Government are fully resolved to get the Revenue Commissioners to implement all their powers because of the huge burden on the PAYE sector and which we cannot do much to reduce. One has to be realistic in this whole approach. The amnesty has been a massive success. Full credit is due to all the staff involved and to the House for giving the approval to implement the stringent measures in the last Finance Act. This Act succeeded in getting defaulters to bring their affairs up to date and, so far as we can see, they have done that. We must all be resolved that, no matter whether it is the black, grey or any other economy, if people owe taxes they must pay them because the PAYE sector have tax deducted from their cheques and have little say in the matter.
The amnesty has proved that there is a huge crock of gold. Will the Minister agree that he has really only skimmed the top of that crock and is he making provision to ensure that he has sufficient staff to implement all the powers given to him, because that has been the problem in the past in the Revenue Commissioners?
That is an area we will keep under constant review. The Deputy will be aware that, notwithstanding the fact that we have reduced staff numbers right across the board and introduced a special redundancy scheme for the first time, we protected the staff in the Revenue Commissioners and indeed allocated additional staff by redeployment. That applies to the Department of Social Welfare as well as to the Revenue Commissioners and we will be keeping a very close eye on the matter. There is no point in having staff reductions in an area where they would more than pay for their keep. I am not making any commitment that we will allocate extra staff, we will only provide them when and where they are needed. Despite the policy on staff numbers we will not deprive the Revenue Commissioners of necessary staff.
(Limerick East): Have the Minister's Department or the Central Bank any indication of whether the £500 million paid during the amnesty was borrowed from the banking system, repatriated from accounts overseas or withdrawn from deposit accounts in lending institutions such as building societies?
I do not have any information in that respect, it is a separate question and I do not know if details would be readily available even if a question was put down. As I understand the position, it is likely it is a combination of all three as that would be the case when substantial sums of that order are concerned.
