Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 May 2018
233. Deputy Billy Kelleher asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation if the Companies Registration Office has collected more than €215 million in late filing fees alone since the fees were substantially increased to the current levels in October 2001. [20190/18]
View answer234. Deputy Billy Kelleher asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation if companies are consistently late each year with their statutory filings; if the Companies Registration Office currently takes in on average €10 million per annum on late filing fees representing in or around 10% of companies that are late; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20191/18]
View answer236. Deputy Billy Kelleher asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation if the current compliance rate with the CRO filings is in excess of 90%; and her views on whether the true figure for compliance is probably nearer 97% if the CRO takes into account the average of 6,000 companies that are involuntarily struck off the register each year for non-filing of their returns. [20193/18]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 233, 234 and 236 together.
The Companies Registration Office (“CRO”) receives late filing fees, which are paid by companies which have filed their annual return late, or by companies which have been struck off the register for non-filing and are subsequently re-instated to the register by filing all outstanding returns which are late. These moneys are returned directly to the Exchequer upon receipt.
Since 2001 a total of €231,734,854 has been received by the CRO in respect of late filing of annual returns. In 2016 the CRO received just over €10 million in late filing fees. In 2017 it received just over €8 million.
At present over 93% of Irish registered companies meet their filing date obligations. In 2017 5,420 companies were struck off the register for failure to file annual returns.
