Revenue cut down on unnecessary paperwork!

The 2011 Finance Bill now enables Revenue to do away with the requirement to issue paper receipts by post for all tax payments. It appears that where a customer makes a payment via ROS, the payment receipt will in the future issue electronically via ROS.

From an environmental and cost perspective, this can only be a welcome advance! Given the volume of paperwork that our own office receives from Revenue in the form of standard notifications and information which are also provided via email and on ROS, we have often wondered how much taxpayers’ money is wasted on postage and stationery costs.

Hopefully the next step will be to cancel the issuing of paper VAT, PAYE and income tax returns to customers who have elected to use ROS to electronically manage their tax affairs. These forms go straight in the bin and in our opinion are a complete waste of money and resources!

Still, one step at a time...