Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Jan 1995

Vol. 448 No. 1

Written Answers. - Self-Employed Tax Returns Audit.

Eric J. Byrne

Question:

23 Mr. E. Byrne asked the Minister for Finance the number of self-employed tax returns selected by the Revenue Commissioners for random audit during the years 1992 and 1993; the numbers found to have extra tax liability; the total additional revenues raised; and the average amount in each case. [1546/95]

Minister for Finance (Mr. Quinn)

According to the Revenue Commissioners the details of the random audit programme of self-employed tax returns in 1992 are as follows:

Audits Initiated
(This includes some companies, but the bulk of the audits related to self-employed)	186
Number of such self-employed audits completed	148
Number of the self employed audits completed which yielded additional liability	66
Total additional Revenue from self-employed	£357,953.90
Average yield per case — for self-employed (including cases with no additional liability)	£2,419

No new random cases were selected in 1993 for audit. I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the following factors made it impractical to include an element of random audit in the overall audit programme for 1993;

— the need to allow taxpayers the opportunity to avail of the Amnesty and to free staff to undertake Amnesty related work.

— the need to concentrate on training of the increased number of staff assigned to outdoor audit activities as a basis for future audit programmes;

— the major restructuring of the audit districts in Dublin and to a lesser extent in Cork and Limerick which took place in 1993 to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of audit.

I am informed that in the 1994 audit plan 2 per cent of audit cases were selected randomly. The purpose of the random audit programme is to demonstrate the risk of audit to every self-assessing taxpayer and the Revenue Commissioners consider that the current selection procedure serves this purpose well and is a useful element in the overall audit programme.