Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 February 2018
150. Deputy Jan O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Finance the amount of VAT and duties collected on goods coming from outside the EU in 2017; if an assessment is carried out with regard to the collection of such duties from online sales; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5961/18]
View answerI am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that where goods are imported from a non-EU country, VAT and Customs Duty are chargeable at the point of importation based on the value, origin and the classification of the good. The amount of VAT and Customs Duty collected from all goods coming from outside the EU is provided in the following table. These figures are provisional and may be subject to revision.
|
Year |
Customs |
VAT |
|
2017 |
€334.6 million |
€1,500 million |
In addition to the application of taxes and duties to goods sold to Irish customers from outside the EU, it is also part of Revenue’s ongoing risk-based compliance programme to ensure that traders involved in distance-selling into Ireland from within the EU meet their Irish and EU VAT obligations, and so do not undermine the competitiveness of Irish retailers.
Revenue uses online search tools and advanced analytics to target unregistered online traders who may be selling to Irish customers. Our Risk Evaluation Analysis and Profiling (REAP) and Social Network Analysis (SNA) systems each use data from multiple sources which can be used in the risk- profiling of online traders.
Data sources include, for example, information provided by other EU Member States and Irish third-party data sources, as well as publicly-available online information. This data is then matched against Revenue’s taxpayer records in order to identify cases which potentially do not meet their Irish VAT obligations.
Since 2009, Revenue has registered over 2,100 online and distance-sellers for the purpose of charging and remitting Irish VAT. The VAT remitted to the Irish exchequer by these sellers has increased from €9.4m in 2009 to an estimated €78m in 2017, with a further projected increase to just under €100m by end-2018.
The majority of these traders are based in the UK, however other EU and non-EU traders comprise an increasing proportion of these sellers.
