The publicity campaign launched by Revenue on 28 August to encourage taxpayers to claim all the reliefs to which they are entitled met with a mixed response from our members.

Many members got in touch with ICAI to point out that, in practice, there are major difficulties in contacting Revenue offices and getting responses in reasonable time to correspondence. This is a contributing factor to reliefs and allowances being underclaimed.

We therefore issued a response to the Revenue campaign which, while welcoming the move, pointed out these difficulties. Our statement is set out below and it attracted significant media coverage.

• (Monday, 28 August 2006) The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI) has noted Revenue's stated intention to encourage taxpayers to claim all the reliefs to which they are entitled.
• While any campaign like this which draws taxpayers’ attention to the range of reliefs on offer is helpful, it is the case that many taxpayers may not be getting their entitlements because of the difficulties they experience in dealing with Revenue.
• This year many Revenue offices were uncon-tactable by phone for weeks at a time. Certificates of tax credits issued late, and taxpayers could not get a response from Revenue offices when they tried to call. It is not unusual for Revenue correspondence to be unanswered for many months, and there can be considerable delays in what should be routine procedures, like getting a tax registration.
• Revenue need to improve their customer service standards and ethos if compliant taxpayers are to get a fair deal.

The Irish Payroll Association also issued results of a survey of their members’ experiences in dealing with Revenue. Apparently, 71% of their respondents said that it was either difficult or very difficult to contact Revenue by phone.