Irish Revenue Commissioners Say 'Substantial Progress' Made On Tax Fraud

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

27 June 2002

The Revenue Commissioners announced on Tuesday that 'substantial progress' has been made in the fight against tax fraud in the Republic of Ireland over the past year.

This comes as a High Court Justice ruled that the list of those suspected to have evaded Irish taxes using Ansbacher accounts in the Cayman Islands will be published in full next week.

In the its Annual Report for 2001, published earlier this week, the tax authority revealed that over 227 million euros has been paid with respect to around 8,380 individual accounts under the Voluntary Disclosure Scheme, and that the Ansbacher investigations alone have yielded around 17.25 million euros.

The Revenue Commissioners' report also revealed that despite unforeseen factors such as the foot-and-mouth crisis, the September 11 attacks, and the global economic downturn, net tax and duty receipts reached record levels.

Commenting on the report's findings on Tuesday, Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Frank Daly observed that:

'Once again, Revenue has successfully risen to an exceptional range of challenges. We collected more tax than ever, we've made substantial progress on key investigations into tax fraud and four prison sentences were handed down for serious tax evasion.'

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