Vol. 437 No. 6
156 Mr. Cox asked the Minister for Finance the amount of tax refunded or offset against other taxes due through the Office of the Collector General in respect of those who had paid arrears due prior to 5 April 1991, but whose payments were not made until after the enactment of the Finance Act, 1993, on 14 July 1993; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
I presume that the Deputy is referring to tax refunded or offset against other tax, as a result of persons availing of the Incentive Amnesty.
There were some 99 cases where taxpayers paid income tax to the Collector General after 14 July 1993 and subsequently notified that office that they should instead have availed of the Incentive Amnesty and that they now required the earlier payments to be credited to the Chief Special Collector.
On receipt of evidence that those cases had lodged the necessary declaration with the Chief Special Collector on or before the deadline of 21 December 1993, the Collector General's Office retained the appropriate settlement amount for each case in the Revenue General Account, in favour of the Chief Special Collector. Any excess over the settlement amount was offset to other arrears in the cases concerned, and where no other arrears were present, refunds were made to taxpayers. To date, the settlement amounts total approximately £100,000 while the amounts offset to other arrears come to almost £95,000. Almost £15,000 has been refunded to taxpayers.
