How can/could Revenue "find out"?

DirectDevil said:
OP's sister needs to get herself along to a tax consultant as a matter of urgency for professional advice on how to put her tax affairs in order.
There is much that we do not know about in relation to the particulars of the specific case.
It occurs to me that it may yet be possible to rescue the situation legally, especially if the benefit has only accrued recently.
Click to expand...
I completely agree with this take. There may be legal ways to achieve the desired long-term outcome while minimizing the tax due.

For example: does the uncle have any business interests, where is his primary residence, etc.

It's possible OP is mistaken and that only the first €32,500 of the €500k was intended as a gift, with the next €120k intended as a loan at 2.5% (with an annual gift of the €3k interest due), etc.
 
Even without too much automation it wouldn't be hard to identify
- take all new property tax payees
- cross check against landdirect to see of mortgage is registered
- if no mortgage look at declared income for previous years
Something like that creates a narrow funnel relatively quickly. I'm sure a well versed accountant could think of other paths.
 
stovesoot said:
- take all new property tax payees
- cross check against landdirect to see of mortgage is registered
Click to expand...
Irish address data is all over the place and matching is not at all straightforward. AFAIK it's very hard to reliably match Revenue property IDs with folio data. So lots of false negatives.

stovesoot said:
- if no mortgage look at declared income for previous years
Something like that creates a narrow funnel relatively quickly.
Click to expand...
It would create a vast number of false positives. Lots of people have legitimate financial wealth and pay cash for a property.
 
I dunno how much looking Revenue do these days but I bought my house with a mortgage in 1990, following year got a letter from Revenue asking me how I financed the purchase of my former address, however I never owned that house I was simply renting a flat in it! But then I am one of these people that would get caught out no matter what!
 
RE: the assertion that money was not earned from PAYE sources.

We are not all sucked into consumerism and keeping up with the McJones.

A lot of people give the impression they are doing well, driving new cars, shows off their status in society.
I bet 90% of the new cars are on finance.
As they say in Texas..... big hat, no cattle.

The uncle could have been frugal and invested his money well.
 
stovesoot said:
Here's a how did they found out that happened to me.
Sold shares sitting in US money landed in my IE account. Not huge amount maybe circa 10k.
End of year got a letter from revenue asking to fill out the form re additional earnings.
Based on cross checking with colleagues we believe what happened was they cross checked the incoming bank account against accounts also recv mortgage interest relief to identify us.
Click to expand...
Bit of a reach, that. They don't routinely monitor private bank accounts in real time.

I'd imagine they received IRS data and matched it with their own records.
stovesoot said:
Irish account recipients without mortgage relief, and those the transferred to offshore escaped the net.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't be so sure of that.
 
fistophobia said:
RE: the assertion that money was not earned from PAYE sources.

We are not all sucked into consumerism and keeping up with the McJones.

A lot of people give the impression they are doing well, driving new cars, shows off their status in society.
I bet 90% of the new cars are on finance.
As they say in Texas..... big hat, no cattle.

The uncle could have been frugal and invested his money well.
Click to expand...
What's your point? There are people in this world who are successful and pay paye and accumulate significant amounts of savings from salary despite the tax rate.

A lot of successful people get car Allowance as part of their salary and after tax the net is enough to buy/finance a top end car.

Companies pay bonuses to successful employees, companies grant shares to employees and again after tax these can be substantial sums.

You appear jealous and automatically think that anyone who has €500,000 accumulated that by illegal means, well I can assure you its possible and not that difficult if you are willing to get the skills and work hard.
 
Paul O Mahoney said:
I think most of us are more shocked than "with similar concerns ", paying taxes isn't something that anyone likes, but if people wantonly "evade" their tax liabilities it effects the entire population both directly and indirectly.
Click to expand...
I'm not shocked at all by the OP's story, because I never for a second believed a word of it. It's preposterous.
 
T McGibney said:
That people dodge huge tax liabilities on fully documented transactions, then get drunk and tell their relatives, one of whom within a few days joins an online forum to tell everyone what happened?

It was the "shure what about it, how'd the tax man ever find out?" line that did it for me.
Click to expand...
That part I agree sounds iffy but look at it this way the advice and the law has had a light shone upon it. I do know of a similar situation same relationship albeit 12 years ago, and guess what Revenue found out and pursued the person who had left the jurisdiction.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top