Tax Net Closing On NIB Customers

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

11 October 2001

Although the Irish Revenue Commissioners reported earlier this week that the number of bogus non-resident account holders coming forward ahead of the November 15th deadline has so far been somewhat disappointing, the results of an ongoing investigation into customers of the National Irish Bank (NIB) are yielding far more satisfactory results.

It was recently revealed that tax chiefs have received more than £25 million over the three years in which the investigations into the Clerical Medical Insurance (CMI) personal portfolio product offered to NIB clients have been ongoing. The Revenue set up the investigation into CMI on the basis that customers were using undeclared money to invest in the product, which was sold by the bank's financial services team, and it is believed that around 429 accounts are, or have been, under investigation.

According to the Irish tax authorities, around £6.5 million of the total amount has been collected from delinquent taxpayers who wanted to stop interest accruing on the amount owed while the investigations were taking place, and it is expected that with a further 138 cases still to be settled, the total take from the NIB swoop could be somewhere in the region of £40 million.

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