Vol. 564 No. 1
169 Mr. Crowe asked the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to the fact that unregistered landlords are receiving rent payments from the health boards; and if there is co-ordination between the Revenue Commissioners and the health boards to combat this matter. [8710/03]
I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that health boards are obliged under section 888 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 to complete an annual third party return known as the Form 8-4 detailing payments made in respect of rent subsidy in relation to any premises. From the Form 8-4 returns the Revenue Commissioners have been able to identify a number of unregistered landlords and to bring them into the tax system. For example, for the year of assessment 1999-2000 in the Dublin area, 692 of the 3,772 Dublin based landlords extracted from the information supplied by the health boards were either not registered for tax or not declaring this source of income on their income tax returns. These cases and sources of income were pursued by the Revenue Commissioners with the result that the defaulting landlords identified are now tax compliant.
Subsequently in the year of assessment 2001, as a result of ongoing discussions between the health boards and the Revenue Commissioners, there was a significant improvement in the way returns were made. This enabled the information provided by different health boards to be merged and facilitated the easier identification of landlords who were operating in the shadow economy.
As part of the consultation process between the Revenue Commissioners and the health boards, it was agreed that information would be exchanged electronically in a standard format for the year of assessment 2002 and subsequent years. This further facilitates the Revenue Commissioners in detecting defaulters as part of their ongoing commitment to achieving maximum compliance with tax legislation as outlined in their statement of strategy 2003-05.
