DUBLIN: The mountains of paperwork that go with monthly and quarterly tax returns will soon be done away with under the Revenue’s plan to fully digitise PAYE taxation in Ireland by 2019.
Revenue chairman Niall Cody described its PAYE modernisation programme as the biggest shake-up in the State’s tax system since the introduction of self-assessment in the late 1980s.
Addressing a breakfast event organised by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, Mr Cody said the new system would eradicate bureaucratic form-filling, removing the P30, P35 and P60 tax forms from the system in favour of a more streamlined digital process.
Full-time reporting, integrated with business processes, was the future, he said.
While employees are expected to benefit from the changes, receiving entitlements from tax allowances and credits more quickly, employers have complained they may incur additional costs by having to provide information on a real-time basis, especially those without the technology to provide ongoing updates.
“The objective of the project is that employers, employees and Revenue will all have access to the more accurate and up-to-date information relating to pay tax, PRSI and USC deductions,” Mr Cody said.