Revenue penalties are more varied — and more expensive — than most people realise. This site explains the difference before it costs you money.
When clients came to D'Emilia Accounting after receiving a Revenue assessment, the number that surprised them was rarely the tax owed. Most people have a rough idea that they owe tax. What surprises them is the penalty structure on top of it — the surcharges, the interest, the distinction between a 10% late filing surcharge and a 100% fraud penalty, and the way interest accrues daily on unpaid tax while the penalty is calculated separately.
In practice, the numbers compound in ways that are not obvious unless you work through the calculation yourself. A tax liability of €15,000 that is two years overdue does not become €16,500 after a 10% surcharge. It becomes €15,000 (the tax) plus €1,500 (10% surcharge) plus daily interest that has been accruing at a rate of 8% per annum for two years — which adds another €2,400. The total is closer to €18,900. Then if the person is making a voluntary disclosure because they believe a Revenue audit is coming, they need to understand whether the disclosure qualifies for the 10% or the 30% penalty regime, and whether full payment at the time of disclosure reduces the penalty further.
None of this is impossible to calculate. It is all governed by published Revenue rules. But the rules are spread across multiple Revenue publications, Tax and Duty Manuals, and Finance Act provisions. No single page on Revenue's website presented them as a coherent, worked system.
Revenue Penalty Calculator was built after the team at D'Emilia Accounting spent time preparing voluntary disclosures and realised that the publicly available information about penalty structures was inadequate for anyone trying to understand what they faced before engaging a professional.
The site is not a substitute for professional advice when you are facing a Revenue audit or making a voluntary disclosure. The calculations involve judgment calls about which penalty category applies to your specific situation, and those judgment calls can significantly affect the total amount you owe. That is professional territory.
What the site can do is give you a clear understanding of how the penalty framework works before you speak with anyone — so that when you have that conversation with a professional or with Revenue, you understand the structure of what is being discussed. A client who understands the difference between a 10% surcharge (late return) and a 30% penalty (unprompted voluntary disclosure on an understatement) is in a much better position than one who hears those numbers for the first time in a Revenue meeting.
Revenue's enforcement framework distinguishes between several distinct categories of non-compliance:
Most people who owe back tax or filed late are in the first two or three categories. The penalties for those are significant but they follow clear rules. This site presents those rules, with worked examples and a calculator that lets you estimate the figures based on your own liability and timeline.
Marina Luna Oliveira d'Emilia is a qualified accountant and co-founder of D'Emilia Accounting. She has prepared voluntary disclosures, responded to Revenue audits, and managed the penalty negotiation process for clients in a range of situations. The technical content on this site reflects that experience — not just the published rules, but the judgment calls that arise in practice when applying those rules to a specific situation.
Vitor Oliveira Alves handles content production and research. His role on this site is to make Marina's technical knowledge readable and usable by people who are not accountants but are trying to understand what Revenue's penalty system means for their situation.
D'Emilia Accounting is based in Ireland and works with individuals and sole traders — particularly immigrants who may not have been aware of Irish tax obligations when they first arrived, and PAYE workers who have had self-employment income on the side without filing a return for it.
The calculator on this site produces estimates based on the penalty rules as published by Revenue. It does not account for individual circumstances that might affect the applicable penalty category, any Revenue discretion in applying penalties, or negotiated settlements. The figure you see in the calculator is a starting point for understanding your position — not a number you can take to a Revenue meeting as a final settlement amount.
If you are facing a Revenue audit, a compliance intervention, or a situation where you need to make a voluntary disclosure, please seek professional advice before taking any action. D'Emilia Accounting's contact details are on the contact page.