The Court of Appeal has dismissed Thomas Doyle’s appeal against a High Court judgment ordering him to pay €70,789.36 to the Collector General for tax liabilities and interest.
Doyle argued that earlier overpayments of VAT, PAYE and PRSI should be offset against the liabilities claimed by the Collector General. The Court of Appeal, in a judgment delivered by Mr Justice Binchy on 12 July 2023, found no error in the High Court’s conclusions that most of the claimed offsets were outside statutory time limits.
The court said Doyle’s late tax returns meant that deadlines for claiming refunds or offsets had passed. It rejected his argument that Revenue letters identifying credit balances were offers of offsets or prevented the Collector General from relying on those deadlines. The court said correspondence could not extend the statutory period.
Doyle also relied on a statutory exception that can permit an otherwise barred repayment to be set against tax due in specified circumstances, including where tax becomes payable through a late assessment or recovery action. He raised this argument for the first time on appeal. The Court of Appeal allowed him to advance it, but dismissed it because he did not establish that the tax in the proceedings was payable by virtue of the specified actions, rather than his own returns. The court said the evidence did not support his claim that Revenue or the Appeal Commissioners had amended his assessments.
The judgment said the mere issue of recovery proceedings could not make tax due and payable, since the liability must already exist. It did not decide whether a Revenue audit could qualify as a recovery action under the exception, describing that question as one for an appropriate case.
The court also upheld the trial judge’s findings that a €1,424.88 payment remitted by the Revenue Sheriff had already been credited against Doyle’s 2003 PAYE and PRSI liabilities, and that a €5,000 VAT payment had been fully accounted for through credits against VAT liabilities. It rejected a separate €840.04 VAT offset claim as out of time.
The appeal was dismissed in its entirety. The court gave a provisional view that the Collector General was entitled to costs, to be determined by adjudication if the parties could not agree. Doyle was given 14 days to make written submissions seeking a different costs order, with the Collector General allowed a further 14 days to reply.