Over 2,300 taxpayers disclose offshore income before deadline

More than 2,300 taxpayers got in touch with the Revenue ahead of a deadline earlier this month to admit that they had undeclared income offshore.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan disclosed the figure on Thursday in a written response to Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath.

The Minister said that, in total, more than €70 million in tax owing, interest and penalties were in “qualifying disclosures” from the taxpayers concerned. He added that the figure covered only those disclosures that had been processed by the Revenue.

“Disclosures are still being processed and the final figure will not be available until next week,” he said.

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The figures point to a sharp increase in disclosures from taxpayers as the deadline loomed. Previously, the Minister said that just 532 taxpayers had contacted Revenue by April 26th, just days before the original May 1st deadline, in relation to liabilities of €13.6 million.

Extended deadline

Revenue chairman Niall Cody subsequently extended the deadline to May 4th to allow for the May Day bank holiday.

The Revenue clampdown follows measures announced in the last budget to restrict the opportunity for tax defaulters to use the voluntary disclosure regime.

Anyone contacting the tax authorities before May 4th was able to avail of a “discounted” penalty rate of 10 per cent of the tax due. They also avoided the prospect of criminal prosecution or having their name appear in the quarterly tax defaulters list if the amount concerned was above a certain threshold.

Revenue was concerned that many people were failing to declare various sources of offshore income. These included foreign earnings and income from rental of property abroad, including holiday homes.

Other sources of potential income are foreign bank accounts and even pensions, including State pensions, being paid to Irish residents who may have worked abroad for some of their careers.

Mr Noonan warned that anyone who failed to take advantage of the Revenue amnesty would face the full rigours of the tax authorities’ investigative powers.

Higher penalties

“Anybody who has tax liabilities relating to offshore matters and who did not act to address them by May 4th, now faces the prospect of substantially higher penalties, publication in the quarterly list of tax defaulters and possible prosecution,” he aid in his reply to deputy McGrath.

New automatic exchange of information procedures between Ireland and 100 other states mean that Revenue will have unprecedented access to details of Irish residents’ offshore assets from here on.

Already, the first tranche of information from the United States has pointed to undeclared tax liabilities for many Irish holders of US-listed stocks and shares on the dividends they receive from those investments.

“Revenue has advised me that it is committed to making full and effective use of the considerable amounts of data on offshore accounts, structures and assets that will be available to them, through international arrangements for automatic exchange of Information, to pursue rigorously anybody who attempts to use such measures,” Mr Noonan said.