Britain's Royal Mail has admitted that several thousand Irish shareholders have been landed with tax bills as a result of problems with the postal service.

A company spokeswoman said, however, it was not possible to determine whether the delay in delivering close to 5,500 letters to the registrars of Scottish insurer Standard Life was the fault of Royal Mail or Ireland's An Post.

“As the service used is not a tracked service, despite extensive investigations we have been unable to establish the root cause of the failure within the An Post or RMG networks,” said the head of Royal Mail’s commercial resolution department.

Answers sought

Standard Life sought answers from the postal service after 4,000 letters from Irish shareholders arrived, largely in one batch, weeks after the deadline for investors to select how they wished to receive a 73p payout from the company.

The payment was thus issued in a manner that leaves it subject to tax in Ireland. A further 1,300 letters from Irish shareholders have arrived in the UK even later, despite being posted well ahead of a March 18th deadline.

Standard Life says it now intends to press Revenue on behalf of Irish shareholders who face bills running into thousands of euro for some as a result of the fiasco.

Investigation completed

“An investigation has been completed by An Post and Royal Mail and their joint findings strongly support the fact that these capital election forms were posted by our shareholders prior to the 18th March deadline,” a Standard Life spokeswoman said. It was now seeking to “engage in further discussions” with Revenue.

However, Revenue has stated that it has no discretion in treating the payments as liable to income tax, universal social charge and possibly PRSI, if it was paid by Standard Life as a special dividend, regardless of the reasons why.