PAYE workers are owed a minimum of €170 million by the Revenue Commissioners after paying too much tax between 2001 and the end of 2003, it has emerged.
As Revenue faced criticisms for failing to ensure that PAYE workers who paid too much tax were refunded, it emerged that three-quarters of those who queried their tax payments were entitled to rebates.
In response to criticisms from politicians, including independent Senator Mr Joe O'Toole, the Revenue Commissioners announced a new system to automatically identify "overpayments" - cases where people had paid too much tax - on its computer system.
In a statement, Revenue said legally they could not carry out reviews without the request from a taxpayer, but that the Minister for Finance had agreed to new legislation to allow for this. Welcoming the news last night, Mr O'Toole said it was "still unacceptable" that people had to request a review, "while Revenue had the very information on their system" which showed they were entitled to a rebate.
According to Revenue's figures, there were overpayments of 306 million in 2003, €267 million too much tax in 2002 and €192.6 million in 2001.
An estimated €121 million remains outstanding for 2003, although all but €53 million remains outstanding from the previous two years. It is believed that overpayments for 2004 could be well over €320 million, only a small proportion of which has been claimed back to date.
The figures also indicated that three-quarters of those who query their entitlements end up getting a tax rebate. However, just 17 per cent of the 1.65 million taxpayers made such queries.
According to sources it is estimated that over €300 million remains outstanding for last year. Revenue, which supplied the figures to Fine Gael TD Mr Phil Hogan, said that they should be treated as "tentative".
Mr Hogan criticised the Government, claiming it "continues to swell its coffers, yet it can't ensure that the money owed to genuine compliant taxpayers is repaid".
In response to the controversy, the Revenue Commissioners issued a statement saying they were "currently well advanced in redesigning our PAYE computer system to allow for automated end-year reviews of tax liability", and that a provision to allow for automated PAYE repayments would be introduced in the upcoming Finance Bill 2005.
However, a spokesman for Revenue moved to play down expectations of windfalls for thousands of taxpayers. He said that the automatic reviews would only pick up overpayments based on the information it had, for example if an individual was classed as being single as opposed to married.