The Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Frank Daly, has said he is not in favour of tax amnesties and does not see the need for another amnesty in the future.
He made his comments in an interview with the Public Affairs Ireland Magazine.
'The very real difficulty with tax amnesties is that in my view, they do not contribute to building compliance because if you get into a culture where tax amnesties are expected, then what's the incentive for people to comply,' he stated.
He said he does not see any need for such amnesties and would actually see an 'awful lot of reasons' as to why we should never have one.
The Government introduced two tax amnesties in the past - the first in 1988 and another in 1993.
The Revenue chief also said he believes the Tribunals and the DIRT inquiry have raised the profile of non-compliance here and, in their own way, have been helpful to the Commissioners in allowing them to pursue issues revealed during those proceedings.
He said that in some cases, people who evade tax should be jailed. 'I have to say that for people who blatantly year after year will not contribute, jail is probably the only thing that will make them sit up and take notice,' he told the magazine.
