Revenue Sheriff Difficulties

PatrickJ

Registered User
Messages
170
Hi there,

My mothers sister and her husband had a small business (sole trader) that closed two years ago. The Revenue Commissioners were the only unpaid creditor with a liability of approximately 22k. Neither party had the funds to pay the Revenue in lump sum form and completed a phased payment application form to which they never received a formal response too but simply a telephone call from a tax official who said they didn't have enough income to clear the liability in the time frame the Revenue would like it cleared; however, they continued to pay the Revenue what they could without fail each month. This was not good enough and the debt was passed to the sheriffs office.

In the interium one of the parties returned to full time employment and considered the option of insolvency but that has been knocked on the head due to their line of work which rules out insolvency.

The sheriffs office are aware of limited income into the property as are the Revenue but have refused to come to any sort of agreement to clear the debt. The liability as of today's date is at 10.5k as both individuals have placed the Sheriff as top priority over their mortgage and the mortgage has now gone into free fall. They are relying on a charity for food stuffs etc both Sheriff and Revenue are aware of this but won't budge.

Should the Revenue have formally declined the phased payment application having considered bank statements and all relevant documentation that was presented to them?

Also just to mention both individuals are old school and have no intention of not clearing their liability.
 
The issue is that the revenue sheriff does not have unlimited time. I know someone who works in one of their offices and six months is even stretching it.

I would think one of the insolvency solutions would be ideal in this situation.

Details of options are here [broken link removed]

They also have a more consumer friendly site http://backontrack.ie/

Specific page for your example is. http://backontrack.ie/pia/

Both are official gov supported sites.
 
Cheers Peemac.

I think its in or around two years that the sheriff have been collecting this debt; so far no sign of him returning it to the revenue.
 
In order to reach agreements with creditors such as banks, trade creditors, vulture funds or the Revenue it is very helpful to understand what parameters they operate within. In the case of the Revenue, their parameters and policies are transparent and well known, and they treat all tax payers the same way. I set out below the link to the Revenue's guidance on instructing the Revenue sheriff.

[broken link removed]


Revenue Sheriffs are very busy and so therefore like simple solutions, particularly given that they are running their own business and after collecting the first €5,000 their commission drops down to just 2.5% of monies collected. The Sheriff has delegated authority to allow two years to collect the debts. If the Revenue Sheriff is unable to collect the debt, then it is passed back to Revenue who might then obtain a judgment in order to enforce it. By the time it is passed to the Revenue solicitors, the debtors' circumstances might have improved and they could negotiate a new payment plan with the solicitors.

Jim Stafford


 
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