IRD, VAT Department merging tax tracking procedures

Out of €185 million estimated to be due in tax arrears to the government, it is believed that €27 million cannot be collected and another €45 million from pre-1999 balances are due from liquidated companies, the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee was told yesterday.  Mario Borg, Commissioner of Inland Revenue said that while taxpayers had assessed themselves to owe €361 million since 1999, the Inland Revenue Department estimated that the correct figure owed was closer to €258 million. One difficulty of tracing old documents had been resolved in 2004 when every document submitted started being scanned. VAT Department Director-General Charles Vella said the the department was owed a backlog of €597 million since 1998, but experience had shown that these figures appeared to be inflated. In actual fact the department thought that only €31.6m were actually collectible. In view of the proposed merger of the IRD and VAT, Mr Vella said one of the first aspects that were being worked on was the streamlining of 'chasing', particularly through electronic systems. Officials of both departments sometimes met in court and realised they were chasing the same persons. Mr Borg concurred that...