The Revenue Commissioners has said it intends to seek High Court orders to compel all life assurance companies to surrender information on customers who may have used investment products to evade tax.
The warning follows Irish Life & Permanent's reiteration of its position that it will not co-operate with a new Revenue investigation by writing to inform its customers that they may have a tax liability. The request to write to its 250,000 customers had been made by the Revenue Commissioners which is targeting individuals who invested more than €20,000 in one or more policies since the 1980s using funds on which they had not paid tax.
The Revenue Commissioners stressed last night that Irish Life & Permanent's decision not to co-operate with its efforts to investigate tax evasion by life assurance customers would not stall its inquiries. Revenue said it would exercise its powers to seek High Court orders after the voluntary disclosure arrangements offered to these tax evaders lapse on July 22nd.
An Irish Life & Permanent spokesman said the group would write to customers if it was compelled to hand over their details on foot of a High Court order, and that it had co-operated on other aspects of the investigation.
In 2003, Irish Life & Permanent issued a letter to customers with funds at its Isle of Man subsidiary to inform them of the benefits of making a voluntary settlement with the Revenue. The group's customers subsequently paid €46 million to the Revenue. Irish Life & Permanent is the only life assurance company so far to refuse to advise those customers with a tax liability to voluntarily come forward and make a settlement as part of the new investigation.