Dear Member,
The Institute sent a detailed 15 page submission to Revenue last week, setting out the difficulties that our members have been experiencing with the contractors’ project. We are hopeful that a resolution can be found to these difficulties.
This submission is the culmination of months of work, discussions, bulletins and meetings with Revenue since the beginning of the year. Information on all of this work to date can be seen on our dedicated webpage.
We spoke with a large number of members who have been in contact with us over the past months to gather a representative sample of actual cases from tax districts right across the country. These cases truly reflect the issues arising on the ground and highlight a number of difficulties:
- Bona fide travel expenses are being disallowed.
- Many contractors had been given a clean bill of health in the past in identical or similar situations.
- Genuine salary expenses are being disallowed.
- Inability to pay which is a real concern as, in the main, the taxpayers involved have young families and high levels of personal debt.
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Of most concern is the inconsistent treatment across the country, of taxpayers in the same circumstances, creating issues over equality of treatment for taxpayers. These inconsistencies include:
- The number of years under audit.
- Expense deductions.
- Salary of spouse.
- Penalties.
- The format of disclosures.
- The parties being audited.
