A personal tax clearance cert?

Sleepy

Is there any merit to the notion of a personal tax clearance cert?

The idea being that if one isn't tax compliant, one shouldn't be entitled to benefit from the state. The existing PPS cards could be used along with card swipes in our hospitals, schools, welfare offices, garda stations etc. and, unless your card show that you've paid your taxes (whether income, property, household etc) you're not entitled to avail of those services.

With a bit of thought, could such a system help reduce the need for tax inspectors in the Dept of Finance, debt collection work in the local councils etc?

Welease

Define "compliant".. There's a big difference between what revenue know and reality unfortunately..

I think the idea has merit, the issue is how do we implement in a manner that actually adds benefit.. At present, our current processes are so cumbersome and slow that the chances are it would take years to determine compliance at great cost with little benefits due to the delays..

Sleepy

Compliant could be defined as simply as a few boolean values:

Has an income tax declaration been received for this person (if they're self employed).
Has the property tax / NPPR charge been collected for any property this person is the registered owner of?
Have water charges been collected for any property this person is the registered owner of?
Has motor tax been collected for any car that this person is the registered owner of?

ETC.

Welease

Sleepy wrote: »

Compliant could be defined as simply as a few boolean values:

Has an income tax declaration been received for this person (if they're self employed).
Has the property tax / NPPR charge been collected for any property this person is the registered owner of?
Have water charges been collected for any property this person is the registered owner of?
Has motor tax been collected for any car that this person is the registered owner of?

ETC.

OK, but as per the Child Benefit Income Testing issues, none of those systems are linked, and while the level of data required is boolean previous experience shows that even that level seems to be beyond our ability, or can only be done at great cost.

(As I said, I agree with the principal of the plan and it's merits, but the usual inability to implement anything of use in this country would likely deem it beyond financial value).

amen

You need a Cashless economy with all transaction complete electronically.

Cuts out the black market.

All income then becomes subject to review and possible taxation ( i.e. the lady minding <5 children at home now has to tax, the plasterer working for cash pays tax etc)

Sleepy

I don't think it'd have to work to the "recalculate Person X's PAYE status on the fly" level for something like this to be of benefit...

antoobrien

Welease wrote: »

OK, but as per the Child Benefit Income Testing issues, none of those systems are linked, and while the level of data required is boolean previous experience shows that even that level seems to be beyond our ability, or can only be done at great cost.

Not actually a massive problem, despite what the claims that the systems don't talk to each other. They don't need to, they just need to be able to dump data into an analytics engine to build reports.

Welease

antoobrien wrote: »

Not actually a massive problem, despite what the claims that the systems don't talk to each other. They don't need to, they just need to be able to dump data into an analytics engine to build reports.

... and implementing e-voting is just a matter of presenting the options and recording the selected choice.

Sleepy

Let's leave the politics out of it. Of course something like this would be a hard sell. That doesn't mean it wouldn't have value however...

Welease

Sleepy wrote: »

Let's leave the politics out of it. Of course something like this would be a hard sell. That doesn't mean it wouldn't have value however...

My comment was not aimed at e-voting politics..

It's (as per my previous comments) a two-fold issue..
1) The implementation of the system is argueably not as simple as people are trying to suggest.. At present, we cannot even process the household charge payments , or disability payment requests within a reasonable timeframe.. Ensuring that all the data collated for this process is timely and representative of reality is likely beyond our current systems and processes.
2) A large % of this countries populace believe they should benefit from as many services as possibly, but don't believe it is their responsibility to adequately fund those services. Trying to get both the employees, unions and political spectrum to agree on the value and process to implement is unlikely in any meaningful manner.

ressem

Sleepy wrote: »

Let's leave the politics out of it. Of course something like this would be a hard sell. That doesn't mean it wouldn't have value however...

Picture the Dail...
"Would Deputy Sleepy confirm that the pensioners that have failed to provide a tax return form will be refused hospital care."

Such as the 1700 [possibly the higher income pensioners?] that were 'invited' to return a short tax form this year, fairly sure that this wasn't the exhaustive list.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0615/revenue-contact-1200-pensioners-over-backdated-tax.html

Don't have a problem if the administrative issue could be sorted out.
I wonder whether it would be feasible to setup a system where transfers into your bank account are automatically recorded on ROS.
If the banks could provide a standard bank statement API it could be done. Legal and security issues put aside for the moment.

Foregoing that, I see too many low income people struggling with the Form 11 which has ballooned in size in the last decade; to cut them off while mistakes are sorted out could be destructive.

The Tree of Liberty

Welease wrote: »

Define "compliant".. There's a big difference between what revenue know and reality unfortunately..

I think the idea has merit, the issue is how do we implement in a manner that actually adds benefit.. At present, our current processes are so cumbersome and slow that the chances are it would take years to determine compliance at great cost with little benefits due to the delays..

It is hard enough to get tax clearance for SMEs and Companies at the moment without attempting to extend it to the rest of the country.

Besides if you aren't registered for income tax all your income should be coming from PAYE. If your income doesn't come from PAYE then you will have to be registered for income tax and you will be assessed by an inspector if you are applying for welfare etc.