Vol. 576 No. 6
75 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Finance if he has satisfied himself that the Revenue Commissioners are receiving full co-operation from Irish financial institutions which have subsidiary companies established in tax havens overseas, in regard to the tax compliance of Irish residents who operate accounts in those subsidiaries. [30116/03]
I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that their offshore assets group are currently making inquiries into the activities of subsidiary operations of three Irish financial institutions, and, in general, co-operation is being received from these institutions. In pursuit of these inquiries Revenue has, in two instances, obtained High Court orders under powers introduced by the Finance Act 1999. This has resulted in a significant amount of information being provided to date. In the third instance, the institution is co-operating and the matter of seeking High Court orders has not arisen. The commissioners expect that they will be instituting inquiries into subsidiaries of other financial institutions in the coming months.
The chairman of the Revenue Commissioners recently initiated a series of high level meetings with certain financial institutions. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss issues concerning possible tax evasion involving the use of offshore accounts in subsidiaries of financial institutions and possible co-operation by the institutions with Revenue inquiries into this matter.
