PENSIONERS WHO got controversial letters from the Revenue Commissioners had received untaxed income of up to €18,000 in some instances, an initial investigation by chairwoman Josephine Feehily has revealed.
Ms Feehily surveyed a random sample of the 150,000 letters to assess the range of tax liabilities involved before appearing in front of the Oireachtas finance, public expenditure and reform committee yesterday.
“The amount of income which would not have been taxed this year had we not amended the person’s record for 2012 ranges from 20 cent to €17,820. A total of 19 cases have additional untaxed income of up to €2,000,” she said.
Her examination of 51 cases found 14 pensioners had never told Revenue they were in receipt of Department of Social Protection pensions, while in 33 instances, the amount of the payment was understated for various reasons, most probably because of changed circumstances.
Ms Feehily denied coming under political pressure to deliver the €45 million savings promised in the budget, when she was quizzed by 22 TDs and Senators during the well-attended three-hour meeting, during which she apologised on behalf of Revenue.
“We caused confusion and distress to some people and I’m sincerely sorry for that,” she said.
Sinn Féin’s finance spokesman Pearse Doherty welcomed Ms Feehily’s apology but complained that: “Pensioners have been made to feel as if they have done something very, very wrong.”
The matter was raised at Cabinet and in the Dáil yesterday, with Opposition politicians stepping up their attempts to force Government to share the blame for the controversy.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin was critical of Taoiseach Enda Kenny, arguing the issue should have been highlighted in the budget speech. “But you ducked it and you said ‘let the Revenue send the letters out’,” Mr Martin said.
Mr Kenny said details were contained in supporting documentation and any attempt to direct the Revenue would be “unwarranted interference” in the organisation.
Revenue has received some 35,000 phone calls from older people and their families since Thursday along with 20,000 queries in person, according to Ms Feehily. She said this was a busy time for Revenue so she could not say for certain that all queries related to the pension issue, although the 10,000 received on Saturday did so exclusively.
She said €60,000 had been spent on postage and paper for the 150,000 letters that were sent to pensioners. Ms Feehily said the short period of time between the receipt of new information about pension payments from the Department of Social Protection and the deadline for putting matters right for this tax year “became our undoing”. Any delay would have meant a build up of arrears for the pensioners concerned, she stressed.
