According to the Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, the yield from capital gains tax (CGT) has increased from €876m in 2001 to an estimated €3bn for 2006.

The Chairman of the Revenue, Mr Frank Daly, was delivering his opening statement to the Public Accounts Committee on 7 December in relation to Paragraphs 2.7 to 2.10 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's Annual Report for 2005. The Revenue aspects of the C&AG's report were included in the October edition of tax.point.

The following, which is taken from the opening statement, gives a summary of the issues addressed by Mr Daly:

2.7 -International Aspects of Revenue Operations
It is the intention of the Revenue, in line with Government policy, to increase the number of Double Taxation Agreements.

2.8 -VAT and E-Commerce
Revenue are reasonably confident from their own risk analysis and from buoyant VAT receipts of recent years that e-commerce has not impacted negatively to any significant extent on VAT collection.

2.9 -Assessment and Collection of Capital Gains Tax
There is no evidence to indicate that the re-categorisation by taxpayers of income as gains was widespread.

A copy of the opening statement is reproduced at Section 2.09.