What the CG does with your preliminary tax

Had some interesting conversations with tax officials this week which I thought I might share in case they are of interest.

The biggest new discovery (for me) was that the Collector General (or apparently his computer system) can choose to arbitrarily divide up your preliminary payment for the next tax year as it sees fit, such as, to offset an undefined portion against the current year. For example, I inadvertently underpaid by about E1500 in my Form 11 filing for 2005, whereupon they (a) took E700 from the payment I had submitted for preliminary 2006 AND (b) sent me a letter asking for E800 - to make up the full E1500.

This was not communicated to me in any way, as far as I can tell, with the result that I believed my full preliminary 2006 payment was still "intact"; I naturally offset it (at E1500) against liability on the Form 11 for that year which went in last month, with the knock-on effect that THIS was now also incorrect. This seems very confusing to me - anyone else know anything about it?

Also, as a self-assessed individual it seems I can no longer request request balancing statements, adjusted Notices of Assessment, or P21s, they told me. So the upshot is I seem to have no way of double-checking their figures, or getting official paperwork records of my tax position with the RC's imprimatur for my files.

Finally, I would also like to reemphasise the point made here on many occasions, that you can't rely on the advice given from Revenue, they can and do make mistakes: I have just been assured categorically for instance that "no PRSI relief is available on pension contributions".

"Also, as a self-assessed individual it seems I can no longer request request balancing statements, adjusted Notices of Assessment, or P21s, they told me. So the upshot is I seem to have no way of double-checking their figures, or getting official paperwork records of my tax position with the RC's imprimatur for my files."


1) Balancing statements are P21's and once one is assessed under INcome Tax, not PAYE, then your Notice of Assessment is your P21
2) Amended Notices of Assessment are available if an amending item is submitted.
3) You can get your real time tax position, returns due, amounts paid etc. at any time if you register for ROS.

Thanks Graham, that's good information; I was just repeating what I was told, so that clarifies things greatly.