Three separate amnesties have been offered to wealthy citizens who evaded their taxes during the past 13 years. A total of £936 million has been collected: £500m in 1988; £260m in 1993 and £176m in the latest DIRT amnesty. The offenders went free and, in many cases, offended again.
A study conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General found that 35 per cent of those who had benefited from the government-sponsored 1988 amnesty also illegally availed of the 1993 exercise. The latest amnesty by the Revenue Commissioners has allowed 3,500 account holders not only to avoid prosecution for evading DIRT tax but to secure a clean sheet for other transgressions. Money talked and rich people evaded jail.
The chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Mr Dermot Quigley, described the latest concession to criminal behaviour as a success, because of the amount of money it raised. He said it would allow his office to focus attention on "a reduced target group of non-compliant taxpayers".
On the basis of what is known, however, the Revenue may only have skimmed the surface of on-going tax fraud. Some 3,500 DIRT defaulters came clean but the remaining number could exceed 25,000. While £176m may pay for better health care, an unofficial Revenue estimate once put the possible windfall at £700m.
Mr Quigley has recognised the need to restore public confidence in the taxation system following a succession of scandals. But his actions are unlikely to frighten hardened tax fraudsters. A Prosecutions Division will be established as part of a three-year reform programme. The Revenue will pursue bogus DIRT accounts. When, or if, they are discovered such people will have to pay taxes and penalties. Their names will be published and, according to Mr Quigley, "appropriate cases will be investigated with a view to prosecution".
It would appear from those comments that the culture of non-prosecution may still be alive within the Revenue.
The time for prevarication and pussy-footing is past. The credibility and authority of the Revenue Commissioners is on the line. People who persist in breaking the tax laws should go to jail.