The High Court has ordered an anonymised company to give Revenue the names and addresses, and available dates of birth, of people sought in connection with an ongoing Austrian tax investigation. The judgment says the order was to be made under section 902A of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, as adapted for cross-border tax cooperation. It does not identify the company or the people concerned.
The dispute arose after Austrian tax authorities asked Ireland for information under an EU administrative cooperation directive. Revenue sought the same details from the company. The company objected on data protection and other grounds, including that the request was a “fishing expedition” and that Austria had not exhausted its usual sources of information. It also disputed whether the statutory reasonable-grounds test had been met.
Revenue’s authorised officer, Florance Carey, said she had examined the request, sought clarifications from the Austrian authorities and was satisfied that the information was foreseeably relevant and that the statutory conditions were met. The court said there was no dispute about the factual background. It accepted that the officer could rely on information supplied by the Austrian authorities and that she did not have to prove that any person had evaded tax. The application was a step in an investigation, which might or might not lead to a case against any of the people identified.
The court held that its role under section 902A was limited to deciding whether the statutory preconditions for an information order were met. It said it had no jurisdiction in this application to determine the company’s substantive challenges under the EU directive or data protection law. Those issues could be pursued through judicial review or plenary proceedings. The court also said the section did not authorise Revenue to put the company on notice of the application or give it a right to respond within this process.
The judge found the section 902A requirements had been satisfied, including the authorised officer’s reasonable grounds for suspecting possible non-compliance with Austrian tax law, likely serious prejudice to tax assessment or collection, and relevance of the requested information. The court decided to exercise its discretion to make the order. However, it reserved further consideration of conditions that could allow the company to challenge the information request in the proper forum. The judgment does not set out a final ruling on those conditions.