Revenue Strategy Statement
30th October 2008Revenue launched its 2007 Annual Report in April. The Report was the third progress report on their Strategy Statement 2005-2007 which had three main goals:
- To ensure everyone complies with their tax and customs responsibilities.
- To be a capable, flexible, results-oriented organisation, and,
- To play its part nationally and internationally.
Overall, the Revenue made great progress in the three years covered by the Statement of Strategy. Some of the highlights for 2007 are listed below:
Receipts
Last year Revenue collected over €66 billion in taxes, duties, PRSI, levies and so on. They repaid or paid over more than €18.5 billion, giving net receipts on 2007 of over €47.5 billion – almost €2 billion above the corresponding figure for 2006. For the first time in five years, the receipts were below the Budget estimate, by €1.7 billion. The cooling of the property market (Stamp duty alone was down €700 million on the Budget estimate) together with moderating consumer spending, particularly in the second half of the year, were primarily responsible for the lower than expected receipts.
A few interesting numbers:
- Average daily lodgement was €217 million.
- Largest daily lodgement was €1.63 billion.
- Single biggest payment was €173.5 million.
Helping Taxpayers Claim
One of the most significant developments for Revenue in 2007 was the initiative announced in the Budget to help taxpayers claim their credits. This included automatically granting some credits: introducing a facility for dirt-free accounts for eligible over 65s; major advertising to encourage people to claim and to promote the PAYE on-line service.
A few interesting stats:
- PAYE reviews went up by 14%.
- Medical expenses claims went up by 19%, and repaid nearly €59m.
- 52,000 tax refunds worth €12 million were made directly to people who are in the Drugs Payment Scheme – for the un-reimbursed amounts.
- ·330,000 PAYE transactions were made on self-service channels.
Service for business
On the business side Revenue reduced the VAT filing frequency for over 70,000 SMEs; they provided a dedicated 1890 LoCall for Employers, and the Revenue Technical Service was launched aimed primarily at giving practitioners and businesses certainty on tax interpretations. A new web-based system for Customs entries went live in June 2007 where it has achieved direct trader input of almost 99%.
Prosecutions
In 2007 there were 14 convictions for serious tax and duty evasion – 9 tax and 5 duty. The first 4 months of this year has had 10 more convictions – 6 tax and 4 duty with sentencing deferred in one case.
There were also 1,263 convictions last year for not filing tax returns and 500 for various duty and smuggling offences.
Drugs and Contraband
Last year drugs with a street value of €139 million were seized – although most of that just arrived off the south coast! Almost 75 million cigarettes, about €500,000 suspected criminal cash, assorted weapons and illicit medicines were seized.
Electronics Tax Filing
Figures up again this year.
Over 99,000 payments were made online this year, an increase of 14% over last year. Over 74% of timely filers used the electronic route this year. This compares favourably with the 70% figure achieved last year.
The total number of transactions conducted through the Revenue On-Line Service showed strong growth in 2007. Payment transactions were up by 38% to over 560,000 and the value of ROS payments increased by 31% to €21.6 billion.
Where next?
In February 2008 Revenue launched the latest Statement of Strategy for 2008 – 2010. In it revenue set out their stall for the next three years. The Goals are broadly the same but the emphasis is shifting. In a nutshell, Revenue’s strategy for the next three years is to be an organisation that:
- Provides excellent service, increasingly customised, and has increased electronic capabilities.
- Focuses Revenue’s compliance activity on the riskiest cases, in the riskiest sectors.
Revenue’s fundamental aim, in all that they do, is to make it easy for people who want to do business with them and to make it difficult for those who don’t.
Revenue Press Office
