Revenue acknowledges the positive engagement by business, individuals, and tax practitioners in its 2020 Annual Report. The report shows that voluntary tax compliance levels remained strong despite the challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic. Only a relatively marginal reduction in tax compliance was evident in 2020 when compared with the year 2019.

Revenue published its Annual Report for 2020 in late April. The report was published alongside a number of reports, including:

• Corporation Tax 2020 Payments and 2019 Returns
• Evaluation of Budget 2020 Compliance Measures
• Income Tax Receipts in 2020
• VAT Payments and Returns 2020
• A Year of COVID-19 Tax Supports – March 2020 to March 2021.

Detailed statistics on the COVID-19 supports administered by Revenue throughout the course of the pandemic show:

• The TWSS provided more than €2.8 billion in support to 66,600 employers in respect of over 664,500 employees between 26 March and 31 August 2020
• The Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) had paid out over €2.6 billion to over 48,400 eligible employers in respect of 546,300 employees to the end of quarter 1 of 2021.
• Additionally, €437 million in employer PRSI was forgone through the EWSS due to the reduced rate of PRSI on wages paid available through the scheme.
• A total of €423 million in CRSS payments had been paid to 21,800 businesses in respect of 24,100 business premises up to the end of quarter 1 of 2021, while €2.3 billion of tax debt was ‘warehoused’ for over 80,000 businesses.

Revenue Chairman, Mr Niall Cody, confirmed in a Revenue press release, issued on the publication of the Annual Report, that the debt warehousing scheme continues to be available for businesses restricted from trading normally. Businesses who have filed returns and warehoused their debt properly will be informed individually of when their warehousing period ends.

Features of Revenue’s performance highlighted in the 2020 reports include:

• delivery of critical Government supports to businesses during 2020;
• processing 68 percent more taxpayer queries, submitted via MyEnquiries, when compared to 2019, with 72 percent of all enquires completed within 5 days;
• completing over 595,100 compliance interventions, yielding €487 million. During 2019 over 566,200 compliance interventions were completed, yielding €548 million. Despite the impact of the pandemic and suspending audit and other compliance intervention activity on taxpayers’ premises since March 2020, Revenue increased the number of compliance interventions on the prior year;
• agreeing tax settlements amounting to €51.4 million with 109 taxpayers who were published as tax defaulters.