Revenue warning follows 'blitz' on Oldcastle

At least one Meath town will be the subject of a major Revenue Commissioners 'blitz' this month when officials plan to target a large number of businesses on the one day. Shops and businesses in Meath who are fiddling their taxes have been warned they will be caught as the Revenue Commissioners say they are wise to all moves to avoid paying tax. The warning follows a recent 'blitz' by Revenue officials on businesses in the Oldcastle area, which could lead to a number of prosecutions. According to the Commissioners' new district manager in Meath, Paddy Faughnan, the recent blitz in Oldcastle was so sucessful that they will be carrying out a similar operation in another local town shortly. In the recent blitz on Oldcastle, officials made cold calls to over 70 business premises, while a joint operation with Customs officials targeted diesel vehicles, checking for the use of 'marked' diesel which should not be used on the road. Mr Faughnan said that at least three-quarters of the businesses visited in Oldcastle were found to be tax-compliant, and there were a number of minor issues with most of the others. However, there were a number of premises where there were serious issues, which may be referred for prosecution. He said that, in some cases, people were not making tax returns on rental income, there were people not making regular tax returns for their businesses, there were some excise duty issues and cases and incidents where employees were not being put through the books. Mr Faughnan, who rcently took over as the district manager in Navan and has extensive experience in the investigations and prosecutions unit, said their aim is to ensure that everybody pays their fair share. "We appreciate it is hard to keep all the balls in the air at the moment and it is certainly not our goal to put people out of business, but it is not fair to people who are paying their taxes if other businesses are allowed to operate in the black ecomony," he said. He warned businesses which are avoiding taxes that they will be caught and will then have to pay the taxes due and substantial penalties. He urged people who aren't compliant to come forward, before Revenue officials come calling, as those who come forward to make voluntary disclosures will receive the lightest penalties. In order to keep a level playing field and ensure that everyone only has to pay their fair share, he urged people to inform Revenue of people who are non-compliant, adding that all information received would be treated with the utmost confidentiality. Mr Faughnan pointed out that the Revenue Commissioners have the technology and the power to catch out tax cheats and deal with them through the courts. "We have trained personnel who can 'interrogate' cash registers and analyse tills and software and we can recognise when sales are being zapped out of the system or where sales aren't been recorded," he said. "They can get information from the till that may not be recorded in the books," he warned. Mr Faughnan explained that they also have the power to seek third party information and tax inspectors can contact suppliers to a business and take extracts from their records to see what they have supplied to the outlet under investigation. He also pointed out they can also get records from cash and carry businesses across the border on people here who buy in cash in Northern Ireland. Mr Faughnan said that banks, building societies, credit unions and the post office must now give information on any accounts earning deposit interest over €100,000. "DIRT tax is stopped on those accounts automatically, but what we will be looking at is the source of the funds that gives rise to that interest. Was it the proceeds of a sale we weren't told about?" he said. The Revenue's offices at Abbey Road in Navan deal with all taxes and duties for people living in Meath or whose business is in Meath. Staff here look after 30,000 business taxpayers and 80,000 PAYE employees. The Navan office has been open for the past two-and-a-half years.