The Revenue Commissioners has netted close to €1 billion from investigations into tax-evasion schemes including bogus non-resident accounts and offshore bank accounts.
The Revenue Commissioners collected €36.5 million in the three months between July and September from 285 individuals who held bogus non-resident accounts. This brings the total amount collected as part of this investigation to €697 million.
During that period it collected a further €3.2 million from seven individuals who used an unauthorised investment scheme sold by National Irish Bank to evade tax. These settlements bring the total amount of tax, interest and penalties recovered by the Revenue to €48.6 million in the NIB investigation.
Three holders of Ansbacher accounts paid €900,000, bringing the total yield to €26 million in this investigation. And two individuals made settlements of €370,000 in relation to money held offshore.
The Revenue has begun an offshore funds investigation and has been in discussions with Irish banks with operations in the Channel Islands.
Customers of Bank of Ireland's Trust company in Jersey and of Irish Permanent's Isle of Man subsidiary were advised by these financial institutions that if they had any potential tax liabilities regarding those funds they should avail of the voluntary disclosure provisions that would allow them to limit the interest and penalties and avoid having their names disclosed in the tax defaulters lists.
The Revenue publishes names of individuals who do not voluntarily come forward to settle their tax liabilities before an audit or where the amount of fine or penalty exceeds 15 per cent of the tax.
The two individuals who made settlements were Mr Douglas Armstrong, a company director from Shankill in Dublin, and Mr Stephen Lannigan O'Keeffe, a barrister and farmer from Thomastown, Co Kilkenny.
Mr Armstrong paid €258,710 to the Revenue, which included tax of €117,944, and interest and penalties of €140,766.
Mr Lannigan O'Keeffe paid €108,012, including €30,597 in tax and €77,415 in interest and penalties.
The offshore investigation, which began in June, has netted a total of €125 million.
