SOME CHARTERED accountants have accused the Revenue Commissioner of deliberately delaying the repayment of tax refunds to companies and the self-employed.
The complaint has been made by the Irish Chartered Accountants of Ireland (ICAI) in a highly-unusual letter to Revenue Commissioners chairman, Josephine Feehily.
“A pattern would seem to be emerging in the handling by Revenue of refunds of tax, particularly overpaid income tax and corporation tax,” said the ICAI’s director of taxation, Brian Keegan.
Now the ICAI has asked Revenue – which firmly denies that any delays are occurring – to accelerate repayments “in recognition of the serious financial problems” facing many firms and self-employed. Accountants also allege that Revenue is manipulating rules to cut down on the amount of interest it has to pay on top of tax refunds.
Companies, he said, have made preliminary tax payments equal to 100 per cent of their prior year’s tax bill, but a slowing economy means that they do match those revenue figures. The companies then make “a timely” application for a refund due, only to be greeted with requests for extra information from the Revenue.
“The Revenue District will request supporting documentation for the claim – perhaps a deposit interest certificate for an immaterial amount.
“As the case progresses, there will be a series of further information requests. The cumulative effect is to delay the refund.
“This type of treatment of a compliant taxpayer, for whom Revenue might be their major debtor, in a time of economic difficulty is unfair,” Mr Keegan went on.
The existing rules are “biased in Revenue’s favour” since the companies are unable to file some of the information subsequently demanded by tax inspectors when refunds are sought. “We must request that a common-sense approach be adopted by Revenue in processing refund claims. Information requests relating to immaterial element of the refunds are inappropriate.
“The practice of issuing a number of information requests letters by Revenue is also inefficient, not only for the taxpayer and their accountant, but also for Revenue,” he told the head of the Revenue.
In a statement last night, the Revenue Commissioners rejected the ICAI’s complaints: “The vast majority of Revenue repayments are made without any delay. Of course a proportion will always require to be examined in more detail: there’s nothing unusual about this. We know, for example, that only 7 per cent of repayments involving examination were on hands for over 20 days by the end of August.
“There is no question of Revenue deliberately delaying repayments,” said a spokesman.
However, the ICAI letter followed a series of trade seminars around the country in recent weeks, where complaints about delays were made by a significant numbers of accountants.
