Sir, - Once again it has been clearly demonstrated that the softly, softly approach to tax evasion is alive and well and living in the Revenue Commissioners.
Those who evaded tax through the use of bogus non-resident accounts have not only had the benefit of a generous amnesty, but the Revenue spent a further £1.25 million of taxpayers' money trying to cajole them into availing themselves of it. This form of mollycoddling contrasts sharply with the approach to the PAYE sector, where every last penny of income has to be accounted for.
As if the foregoing is not bad enough, compliant taxpayers are treated to an almost daily diet of revelations from the various tribunals which clearly indicate that tax-dodging is the order of the day. Orchestrated letters, bogus invoices and many other forms of jiggery-pokery figure prominently in tax schemes of dubious legality.
As if to underline all this, the principal of a company which recently settled with the Revenue for almost £2 million freely admitted that a tax scheme set up under professional advice was to blame. It is most unlikely that these are isolated cases.
If past experience is anything to go by, compliant taxpayers are unlikely to be reassured by the threats of drastic action currently being issued by the Revenue Commissioners. They have heard it all many times before.
It is time for our Government to legislate for and implement whatever measures are necessary to crack down on all forms of tax evasion once and for all. - Yours, etc.,
M.D. Kennedy, Silchester Park, Glenageary, Co Dublin.