Revenue have power to obtain information

WITH JUST six months to compile a register of approximately 1.6 million tax-liable households, the Revenue Commissioners are facing a mammoth task.

But despite the enormitiy of the brief, Revenue are confident they can meet the challenge in time for the July 1 deadline.

They have indicated they will use additional powers under property tax legislation to obtain information from utility providers such as gas and electricity companies that will supplement their own database.

Revenue will also use registry data from last year’s household charge, data from the nonprincipal private residence annual charge, and information supplied by the private residential tenancies boards.

This data collection will, according to the Revenue Commissioners’ website, ‘allow us to contact liable persons in March 2013’.

This suggests that Revenue will overcome one of the obstacles faced by the Local Government Management Agency when administering the €100 household charge last year – absence of a comprehensive database of all residential properties.