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29th Jul 2015

The worst county in Ireland for tax-dodging has been revealed

Naughty, naughty county

Carl Kinsella

Roscommon, we’re looking at you.

A county-by-county report on Irish failure to pay taxes has revealed that County Roscommon is leading the country in a very undesirable category.

430 tax offences were recorded in Roscommon between 2002 and 2014, a rate of 671 cases per 100,000 people.

High rates of failure to make income tax returns were found across the north west and midlands of Ireland with Leitrim, Longford, Offaly and Donegal also featuring in the top five.

shake harder boy

Kilkenny are the Ned Flanders of Ireland, recording only 68 cases of tax crime per 100,000 people (but it’s also possible that they’ve given up hurling and turned their attention to becoming really good at dodging taxes).

The RTÉ Investigation Unit also revealed that men are behind the vast majority of unreturned income tax, accounting for just over 94% of all cases. Specifically, agriculture and the construction industry have more offenders than other industries, together accounting for over one-in-five cases of unreturned income tax.

All in all, over 11,000 people were convicted of failing to lodge income tax returns between 2002 and 2014, with fines totalling more than €20 million levied.

The full report can be read at here.

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