Authorised Revenue officers are empowered to make an application to a judge of the High Court seeking an order requiring financial institutions to supply names, addresses and other relevant information concerning account holders who may have held bogus non-resident deposit accounts. Such applications are made under section 908 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, as amended by the Finance Act 1999. I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that information supplied by the financial institutions under section 908 orders will be the principal basis of identifying bogus non-resident account holders who did not avail of the voluntary disclosure scheme in 2001. This inquiry work commenced on 16 November 2001.
Information that is being supplied by deposit takers on foot of High Court orders is becoming available on a phased basis. Very large volumes of information are being reported to the Revenue Commissioners under these High Court orders. Inquiry work in relation to the examination of the first batch of taxpayers commenced on 11 October 2002. Further issues of inquiry letters were made in January and May 2003. These three inquiry letter issues relate to 41,000 non-resident accounts that had 80,000 Irish addresses connected with them. Further inquiry letters will issue shortly.
Apart from inquiries initiated on the basis of information reported under High Court orders, inquiries had also commenced in February 2002 into taxpayers who held bogus non-resident accounts which were detected in the course of the DIRT look-back audits of financial institutions in 1999 and 2000 and did not avail of the voluntary disclosure scheme in 2001.
While it is clear that the Revenue Commissioners face a major programme of investigations over a number of years, they have informed me that they are satisfied that significant progress is being made in this, the final phase of the DIRT related investigations. Since 15 November 2001, the current phase of the investigation has resulted in payments of about €170 million to the Revenue Commissioners. This is in addition to the €227 million under the 15 November 2001 voluntary disclosure arrangements.
