The Deputy will be aware that the Revenue Commissioners have responsibility for the administration, collection, enforcement and audit aspects of all taxes and duties and that they are independent in the application of the Tax and Customs Acts.
The Revenue Commissioners have informed me, however, that their approach to selecting cases for intervention is based on the presence of various risk indicators and other information available. This type of targeted intervention gets the best results while minimising unnecessary contact with compliant taxpayers. The process of identifying risky sectors and taxpayers is greatly enhanced by the computerised Risk Evaluation Analysis and Profiling System (REAP) developed by Revenue. REAP contains considerable information on all self-assessed taxpayers and is used to profile business sectors and to categorise taxpayers in accordance with defined risk criteria. It also allows for the screening of all tax returns against sectoral and business norms and provides a selection basis for checks or audits. This effectively means that 100% of self-assessed taxpayers, including medical professionals, are risk assessed a number of times a year.
Revenue has a prioritised focus on those sectors that have traditionally been susceptible to tax and duty evasion such as cash businesses. This includes risk evaluating medical consultants and other such professionals. In conducting this risk assessment, Revenue uses all sources of information available, including third party data sources like payments from the General Medical Services Board and other valuable transactional level data including invoices and receipts. These sources are used particularly to corroborate information provided on tax returns.
I am also informed by the Commissioners that they are constantly reviewing their methods of identifying compliance risks and, where they establish potential additional data sources they seek legislative change to gain access to such data. In that regard, since 2013 Revenue is provided annually with details of all credit and debit card payments from the merchant acquirers who handle such transactions. This source of data, when matched against Revenue's register, is helping to identify those medical professionals and others who may operate on a cash only basis. However, because there are costs associated with the operation of debit/credit cards, there can be valid reasons for a business to decide not to accept them.
I am satisfied that the Revenue Commissioners are even-handed in the pursuit of non-compliers whether they are professionals or other sole traders and base their interventions on objective risk criteria. As an indication of compliance activity in the area of medical professionals, Revenue has provided me with the following information, based on a wide ranging definition of medical professionals including General Medical Practitioners, consultants, surgeons, physiologists, psychiatrists and other specialist medical activities:
Compliance Interventions Medical
|
-
|
2014 (to April)
|
2013
|
|
No. of Compliance Interventions
|
242
|
469
|
|
Yield
|
€6.3m
|
€3.3m
|
Furthermore, the Deputy may wish to note the following data from Revenue's quarterly published defaulters' list specifically relating to hospital consultants and other medical professionals,
2014 (Q.1) - 3 with a yield of €3.1m
2013 - 10 with a yield of €1.6m
2012 - 7 with a yield of €2.7m
I am also confident that the Revenue Commissioners are pursuing programmes that maximise voluntary compliance and deal in a very determined way with tax non-compliance, particularly in relation to cash businesses. Of course, if the Deputy has any information that would help target medical professionals engaging in potential income suppression activities, I would encourage him to pass this information on to the Commissioners.
