There were just over 60,000 businesses and individuals still availing of Revenue's tax debt warehousing scheme at the end of July of this year, who collectively owed €1.9 billion.
55,775 of those were businesses, who accounted for €1.207 billion of the debt, with an average debt value of €21,636.
A further 2,587 were personal taxpayers who owed a total of €19m or €7,460 on average.
There were also another 1,550 medium enterprises who owed €587m, with an average debt of €378,423.
109 large corporates and high wealth individuals had also warehoused a total of €116m, an average debt value of €1,069,530.
The figures are contained in the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report on the Accounts of the Public Service 2022, which was published today.
Revenue told the C&AG that €85m of debt previously warehoused by 956 businesses has been identified as uncollectable.
This is mainly due to reasons such as liquidation, examinership, bankruptcy and cessation of trading.
"These businesses and the associated debt have been removed from the debt warehousing scheme," the report said.
The report explained that taxpayers have until 1 May 2024 to enter into a phased payment arrangement (PPA) or to pay their debt.
At the end of July, just 5% or €99m of the value of warehoused debt was subject to an agreed PPA, involving approximately 2,200 of the 60,000 businesses/individuals in the scheme.
The C&AG found that among a random sample of 20 PPAs, seven had not submitted an application form, while 17 of the down-payments made were below the relevant percentages specified in the Revenue guidelines.
In response, Revenue told the C&AG that the mandatory requirement to submit supporting documentation for all PPA applications was relaxed to recognise access to agents and relevant accounting services to complete documentation such as application forms and management accounts was severely hampered during the Covid-19 health restrictions.
The facility to accept reduced down-payments on a case-by-case basis was an additional flexibility introduced for PPAs, Revenue said.
The report also found that at the end of July, there were almost 12,000 businesses/individuals, with debts totalling €310m that had their warehouse status revoked due to non-compliance with the scheme conditions.
Of those, 559 cases, with debts of €58m, had their warehouse status reinstated once Revenue confirmed that the issues of non-compliance had been addressed.
