Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 January 2013
220. Deputy Robert Dowds asked the Minister for Finance his views on issuing every household who pays property tax with an annual receipt outlining the way their money was spent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2888/13]
View answerWhile I believe that there is considerable merit in making more information available to members of the public about the sources of Exchequer income and its expenditure, I must be conscious of the costs and practicalities of issuing every household who pays Local Property Tax with an annual receipt. I believe that transparency is to be welcomed. If people are better informed then they will better understand the need for current levels of taxation. It will also serve to enhance public knowledge of the extent of spending on our vast range of public services and, indeed, provide an increased understanding of their cost.
The Local Property Tax will be collected by the Revenue Commissioners. However, they do not issue statements to the vast majority of taxpayers and as part of their modernisation programme they are actively working to reduce the incidence of such statements. The core mission of the Revenue Commissioners is the collection of taxes and duties, and the implementation of customs controls. It has no function in decisions relating to the allocation or expenditure of Government funds arising from taxes received. The proceeds of the Local Property Tax will accrue to local authorities and will support the provision of local services. How this will be spent will vary from local authority to local authority and this information will not be readily available to Revenue. Any requirement on Revenue to gather, analyse and provide details of how taxes were spent would be adding the burden of a non-core function on an already fully engaged office and could prove to be a drain on limited resources. Decisions about the allocation of resources for local services would primarily be matters for my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government and for the local authorities themselves.
Turning to the question of distributing statements, the most obvious and efficient mechanism to distribute any proposed statements to individuals is by way of an electronic interface. However, in order to protect taxpayer confidentiality, any electronic system containing taxpayer information and data must be properly secured and accessible only through secure passwords and other protections. Although Revenue has a number of online systems, they are designed for the declaration and collection of tax. They would require extensive and expensive development to reconfigure for use in the distribution of the data outlined in this parliamentary question.
Not all taxpayers have, or indeed want, access to Revenue's online facilities. Accordingly, in these cases, Revenue will be obliged to print and then post the data and information to individual taxpayers. The operational costs involved in this can be significant.
Furthermore, Revenue has found that in the past the distribution of unsolicited information has sometimes surprised many taxpayers and caused needless concern. This gave rise to substantial increases in phone calls, letters and personal callers to Revenue offices. These, often simple information or explanatory enquiries, resulted in the diversion of experienced staff away from essential tax compliance related functions.
Taxpayers should be as well-informed as possible about where their money goes. It is appropriate also that they should have confidence that their money is used wisely, by a Government which focuses on efficiency and effectiveness. Having said that, I am not satisfied that the benefits to be derived from implementing a system of issuing every household who pays Local Property Tax with an annual receipt outlining the way the tax was spent would outweigh the costs and administrative burden involved.
