Latest Tax news

Revenue has published updated guidelines for Phased Payment Arrangements to update details on relevant terms and to remove obsolete details.

The Central Statistics Office has published the Quarterly National Accounts – Provisional for the first quarter of 2025 confirming GDP increased by 9.7 percent on a quarterly basis in the first quarter of this year. Modified Domestic Demand grew by 0.8 per cent relative to the previous quarter and by 1 per cent on an annual basis. The publication outlines an increase of 2.5 percent in consumer spending in the first quarter and a substantial increase in goods exported. Commenting on the figures, Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe said: “Today’s figures confirm the relatively strong position of the domestic economy at the start of this year. Looking ahead, however, the economic outlook has become increasingly challenging. Indeed, the significant increase in uncertainty is likely weighing on growth”

The Parliamentary Budget Office recently published the Tax Receipts Dashboard which presents net tax receipts data in a visual and interactive manner. The dashboard looks at the makeup of the tax base, and analyses tax receipts by tax head, economic sector and by county. The dashboard outlines that the manufacturing sector, which includes the pharmaceutical industry, represented 15.5 percent of total tax receipts in 2024. This represented a fourfold increase since 2011 primarily driven by higher corporation tax yields. The information and communication sector contributed 11.94 percent of receipts, reflecting a seven-fold increase since 2011. In 2024, total net receipts of €44 million arose in Dublin, with Cork reporting total receipts of €26.5 million including receipts arising from the Court of Justice of the European Union ruling in the Apple State Aid case. All other counties account for approximately or less than €2 billion each. The publication includes a note with information on how to use and interact with the dashboard.

Revenue has launched a campaign encouraging PAYE taxpayers to complete an end of year tax review through the myAccount service. As part of the review, the service allows taxpayers to claim tax credits and reliefs and details of the more common tax credits and reliefs are available through links in the campaign launch page. Revenue has confirmed it will agree payment options with taxpayers where a tax liability arises, and tax refunds will be paid within a few days of completing the end of year review.

Revenue has published guidelines for the Cross Border Operation of the EU VAT SME scheme (VSME). The VSME alleviates the compliance obligations of small businesses by allowing the supply of goods and services to EU customers without incurring an obligation to charge VAT. An Irish established business can avail of the scheme provided the business’ annual turnover within the European Union does not exceed €100,000 in the current and previous years. The small business must also not exceed the annual turnover threshold, in the current and previous calendar years, of the Member State(s) in which they want to utilise the scheme. Participation in the scheme is optional. The scheme allows qualifying small enterprises to avail of the VAT registration thresholds in all Member States where they supply goods and services, thus avoiding the requirement to register for VAT in those Member States. However, there is no right to deduct input VAT incurred on the purchases of goods and services linked to supplies made under the scheme. Additional details are included in our earlier article which you can read here.

The Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform have published the Fiscal Monitor for May 2025 confirming an Exchequer surplus of €4.0 billion to the end of May. This compares to a surplus of €0.8 billion recorded for the same period last year. Tax receipts collected to the end of May were €38.2 billion, which was €3.0 billion higher than the same period in 2024. Excluding the once off receipts from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judgement in the Apple State Aid case, total receipts amounted to €36.4 billion, an increase of €1.3 billion on the corresponding period in 2024. Income tax receipts for the month of May were €2.8 billion which was €0.1 billion ahead of receipts collected in May 2024. On a year-to-date basis, receipts to the end of May of €14.5 billion were up by €0.6 billion (4.8 per cent), when compared to May 2024. Corporation tax receipts of €2.5 billion were collected last month which was a reduction of €1.1 billion on the same month last year.  As highlighted in the Fiscal Monitor certain exceptional factors which boosted May 2024 receipts are distorting the year-on-year comparison. On a cumulative basis, receipts of €7.4 billion were up by €1.1 billion on the same period last year. When the once-off CJEU receipts are excluded, cumulative corporation tax receipts to May 2025 amounted to €5.7 billion, down on the same period last year by €0.6 billion. VAT receipts collected in the May of €3.5 billion represented an increase of €0.1 billion when compared to the same month last year. Cumulative receipts of €11.4 billion were ahead by 5.5 percent on end of May last year. Commenting on the figures, Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe said: “May is one of the more important months for tax revenues, and the steady growth in most tax headings points to an economy that is in a relatively good position. The most notable feature of the May Exchequer returns was in respect of corporation tax, which saw a marked year-on-year drop. While this reflects once-off factors last year, it nonetheless highlights the degree of concentration in the corporate tax base, wherein a small number of multinational firms can significantly impact on the overall tax yield                                                                         In a context of unprecedented uncertainty in the international economic landscape, this serves as a timely reminder of Ireland’s exposure to changes in the global trading environment, and of the vital importance of adhering to a sensible and sustainable budgetary strategy.”

In this week’s post EU exit corner, we bring you the latest guidance updates and publications relevant in the post EU exit environment. The most recent Trader Support Service bulletin is also available as is the most recently published Brexit and Beyond newsletter from the Northern Ireland Assembly EU Affairs team. The outcomes from the latest meeting of the HMRC forum, the Northern Ireland Joint Customs Consultative Committee (NI JCCC), which the Institute participates in, are now available to read. And finally, UK steel and aluminium exports have been temporarily spared from the US administration’s decision to double tariffs on these goods.   Latest NI JCCC meeting   The most recent meeting of the NI JCCC has taken place. Minutes from the meeting and the accompanying slides are available to read.  Miscellaneous guidance updates and publications  This week’s miscellaneous guidance updates and publications are as follows: Appendix 2 C21i: DE 1/11: Additional Procedure Codes,  Making an entry summary declaration,  Data Element 2/3: Document and Other Reference Codes: Licence Types — Imports and Exports of the Customs Declaration Service (CDS),  Data Element 2/3: Documents and Other Reference Codes (Union) of the Customs Declaration Service,  Safety and security declarations,  Safety and security import requirements: entry summary declarations,  Notices made under The Customs (Export) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019,  Notices made under The Customs (Import Duty) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018,  Register to use the Import Control System 2,  Make an entry summary declaration using the Import Control System 2,  Data requirements for express operators who move consumer parcels from Great Britain to Northern Ireland,  How to send parcels from a business in Great Britain to a private individual or a business in Northern Ireland,  Sending parcels from Great Britain to Northern Ireland between private individuals,  Create a goods movement reference,  Sending parcels between Great Britain and Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework, and  External temporary storage facilities codes for Data Element 5/23 of the Customs Declaration Service. 

In this week’s miscellaneous updates: HMRC has published the company car advisory fuel rates applicable from 1 June 2025,   The latest HMRC Stakeholder Digest is available, and   The Government has announced that the UK and Isle of Man will work together to “explore ways to further enhance information flows” to combat tax avoidance and evasion.   

Ahead of the publication of its annual report and accounts which usually takes place in July, last week HMRC published a provisional update on its phone performance. The update was published just the day before HMRC experienced a major phone outage on Wednesday 4 June. The outage happened on the same day that HMRC senior officials appeared before the House of Commons Treasury Committee.   According to the provisional update, in March 2025, HMRC handled 80.2 percent of calls, up from 71.5 percent for the year to 31 March 2025. The Department took 14 minutes and 44 seconds on average to answer a call, down from 18 minutes and 38 seconds for the year to 31 March 2025.  At HMRC’s Treasury Committee hearing, it was stressed that the phone outage on Wednesday was not related to the announcement of the loss of £47 million as a result of phishing attacks and that the lines themselves were not down but had instead been closed because the system used to handle incoming calls had experienced an outage. According to the appearance, the phone line set up for recipients of the phishing fraud letter was unaffected.  The news of the recent phishing scam and HMRC’s customer service levels were discussed at the Treasury Committee hearing in addition to:  HMRC's priorities for the next three to five years,  HMRC’s collection of taxes from wealthy individuals following the recent publication of a National Audit Office Report,  The exodus of wealthy taxpayers from the UK, and  HMRC delays in processing refunds.   HMRC’s new Permanent Secretary and CEO JP Marks appeared in front of Committee for the first time last week. A full transcript from the hearing has not yet been published but will be available here. 

The European Commission recently published reports looking at each Member State’s economic and social developments and challenges, and assessing the extent to which these are addressed by national policies. In the report on Ireland, the Commission highlighted the solid growth and resilience of the Irish economy, noting that public finances are in a strong headline position. In terms of current barriers to private and public investment, the report highlights infrastructure deficits, labour and skill shortages, and high costs of doing business as the main challenges.

Last week, the European Commission set the EU budget at €193.26 billion for 2026. The budget is aimed at supporting strategic objectives, including support for Ukraine, competitiveness, migration management, security and defence, and strategic investments, while maintaining momentum on green and digital priorities. The budget is complemented by approximately €105.32 billion in disbursements under NextGenerationEU,which is a fund to help repair the immediate economic and social damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic and make the EU fit for the future.

Last week HMRC contacted the Institute ahead of the announcement that taxpayers have been targeted by criminals creating and/or accessing their online HMRC accounts to set out what had happened and what action it was taking. HMRC’s security systems detected unauthorised access to some online accounts (particularly inactive accounts), and the creation of new credentials, which has ultimately resulted in approximately £47 million in fraudulent tax repayments being paid out. This loss has been directly suffered by HMRC and not individual taxpayers.  Between 4 and 25 June 2025, HMRC is contacting affected individuals by letter to explain the incident, including how they can restore access to their online accounts if necessary. The full briefing received by the Institute from HMRC is available here. In discussions with HMRC we were also made aware that a much larger sum of over double the amount lost in fraudulent repayments was stopped by HMRC during this incident.    The letters being sent also explain how the person can contact HMRC if they have any concerns. Only those individuals with affected accounts are being contacted. Anyone receiving contact from HMRC can check if the letter is genuine on GOV.UK.   According to HMRC, it has protected the affected accounts by deleting the associated log-in credentials i.e. the government gateway user ID and password. Any incorrect information has also been removed from the individuals’ tax records, and a check has been performed that no other details were changed.   HMRC provided more information on this incident during an evidence hearing of the House of Commons Treasury Committee last week. According to this, the criminals involved used information obtained from non-HMRC sources via phishing attacks on individuals as opposed to this being a cyber breach of HMRC systems. The attack has impacted on around 100,000 individuals, mostly in PAYE, at a cost of £47 million in fraudulent repayments. Overall, in its evidence to the Committee, HMRC says that it protected the loss of nearly £2 billion in criminal attacks in 2024/25.  Often the taxpayer did not have an active online tax account hence the criminals set up new accounts and credentials. HMRC has also said that work on this issue has been ongoing for some time, with some arrests made in 2024. Discussions with HMRC also highlighted that the majority of the taxpayers involved are not represented by an agent and comprise 0.22 percent of all online tax accounts.