Reporting and compliance burden highlighted in Institute submission

This week the Institute made an important submission to the Cost of Business Advisory Forum being run by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment. 

This round of consultation focussed on the reporting and compliance burdens that are placed on businesses.

In the submission, the Institute argued that there was a need for a cross-Government simplification drive here in Ireland. The Institute outlined clear evidence of where the reporting and compliance obligations are overburdensome and overly complex.

The difficulty in accessing Government supports and tax reliefs has been consistently raised by members and the Institute outlined clear cases where SMEs are discouraged from applying for certain supports due to the administrative burden involved.

The Enhanced SME test is designed to sense check every proposal coming from Government to see if it is placing an undue and disproportionate burden on SMEs. Yet there is concern that this test is not being applied and the Institute outlined some key examples where this has been the case.

On the tax side, the major issues facing businesses in relation to the Enhanced Reporting Requirements was highlighted in the submission in detail and the Institute called for a review of the real-time reporting requirement. It was also pointed out that the previous simplification process run by Revenue was too restrictive by only focussing on administrative issues and it did not extend to policy and legislative issues.

From a European perspective, the Institute urged the Government to get behind the European Commission’s simplification agenda and to use its Presidency of the Council of the European Union to advance important files like the Digital Omnibus, the Tax Omnibus, the Savings and Investment Union and the 28th Regime.

Following this submission, the Institute will be attending the next meeting of the Forum on 18 February 2026 which will focus on reporting and compliance, and the Institute will further articulate the need for a cross Government initiative to drive the simplification agenda.