Irish government tax take down-they blame SEPA

The Irish  Government’s first set of exchequer returns for 2014 are sharply down on last year because of the switchover to the new European electronic payments system.

The latest returns showed the State collected nearly €650 million less than expected in tax last month.

The anomaly was blamed on the introduction of SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) system which slowed down the Revenue Commissioners’ collection of VAT, corporation tax and employers’ PAYE and PRSI.

Instead of payments being processed within two or three banking days it will now take seven banking days.

The department insisted the fall-off in tax was a “ technical timing issue” and did not alter the tax forecast for the year.

The figures showed the exchequer deficit at the end of January stood at €1.14 billion, compared with a surplus of €704 million at the same stage last year.

Net voted expenditure for January was €4.1 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 3.8 per cent or €152 million.

	January 2013	January 2014
Overall Tax Revenue	€3.7 billion	€3.1 billion
Income Tax	€1.38 billion	€1.2 billion
Vat receipts	€1.74 billion	€1.37 billion
Corporation tax	€11 million	€7 million
Excise duties	€318 million	€342 million