The number of people filing a self-assessed tax return in the past five years has grown by 100,000

The increase is being put down to the rise of influencers and bloggers.

A new study has shown that in the past five years, the number of people filing a self-assessed tax return has grown by 110,000. Taxback.com, who conducted the survey, are claiming that the growth in this number is due to four primary factors:

• The development of new entrepreneurial sectors, such as bloggers and influencers.
• The participation in new income generating activities, like Airbnb etc.
• An increase in the number of people with extra income due to higher employment in large companies with share options.
• Higher levels of compliance due to the ever-growing reach of Revenue and their focused clampdown of non-compliance through the country.

Taxpayers are being urged to get their affairs in order before 31 October, which is the filing deadline. Speaking on the findings from the survey, Eileen Devereux, commercial director at Taxback.com, said:

"In 2013, Revenue received 600,088 self-assessed tax return submissions - by 2017, this figure had grown to 710,157. In a growing economy it is normal to see a growth in the number of self-assessed taxpayers and I believe Revenue’s Annual Report figures from 2013 – 2017 reflect a fully functioning economy, with higher employment in larger companies, and the proliferation of new emerging business sectors and revenue generating activities.

"However, often we find that the 'newbies' who fall into this tax category are unaware of their obligations, or at the very least, have only partial knowledge of their new tax filing responsibilities, and also of the reliefs and allowances available to them as self-assessed taxpayers."

The following graphic explains the increase in these figures.