{"id":439377,"date":"2026-05-08T22:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T22:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/439377\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T22:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T22:40:08","slug":"company-behind-st-patricks-day-festival-hit-with-e448000-vat-bill-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/439377\/","title":{"rendered":"Company behind St Patrick\u2019s Day festival hit with \u20ac448,000 VAT bill \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The firm behind the St Patrick\u2019s<\/a> Festival (SPF) in Dublin has been hit with a VAT bill of \u20ac448,000 after a Revenue Commissioners<\/a> intervention, its latest accounts show.<\/p>\n

The 2024 accounts for Feilte Dhuibh Linne Cuideachta Faoi Theorainn R\u00e1tha\u00edochta (St Patrick\u2019s Dublin Festival Company) also disclose that the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (DETE) moved last September to provide additional funding of \u20ac454,000 to cover the VAT write-off.<\/p>\n

The directors confirm in their report attached to the 2024 accounts that there has been an ongoing Revenue compliance and intervention review in relation to the recovery of VAT on purchases by the charity. <\/p>\n

The directors state that following this review having concluded in August 2025, Revenue disallowed a significant portion of VAT input credits claimed by the charity dating back as far as the March\/April 2023 VAT return. <\/p>\n

This resulted in Revenue disallowing VAT claims totalling \u20ac301,000 in the period to August 2024, and an additional \u20ac147,000 disallowed up to August 2025.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Towns do not have the financial strength of cities\u2019: the burn-out of St Patrick\u2019s Day festivalsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The directors add that the \u20ac448,000 write-off arose from a change in Revenue\u2019s interpretation of the VAT rules. <\/p>\n

The exceptional VAT charge of \u20ac302,946 for 2024 resulted in the St Patrick\u2019s Festival firm recording a loss of \u20ac27,326 for 2024.<\/p>\n

Although the charity is reporting negative reserves as at August 31st, 2024, \u201cthe injection of additional funding from the DETE and a strong FY2025 have returned the charity to a positive net asset position\u201d, the directors said.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for SPF said on Friday: \u201cThe VAT adjustment arose following a Revenue review of the application of VAT rules to certain expenditure categories. <\/p>\n

\u201cSPF engaged fully and transparently with this process, and the outcome reflects a revised interpretation rather than any issue of noncompliance. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe department\u2019s funding reflects the importance of the festival as a key national cultural event and supports its continued delivery. Since then, SPF has delivered a strong financial performance, with 2025 delivering an economic impact of \u20ac138 million and the 2026 festival attracting over 650,000 attendees,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the festival\u2019s total income amounted to \u20ac3.4 million that included grant funding of \u20ac1 million from F\u00e1ilte Ireland, \u20ac846,978 from the Department of Tourism, \u20ac438,000 from Dublin City Council and \u20ac65,100 from the Arts Council.<\/p>\n

The festival also generated \u20ac309,304 from sponsorship of the festival and \u20ac333,932 from the sale of grandstand tickets, an increase on the \u20ac276,240 in grandstand ticket sales in 2023.<\/p>\n

The festival\u2019s spend in 2024 totalled \u20ac3.36 million, including \u20ac2.19 million on festival events that included \u20ac416,246 spent on artists and pageants. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The firm behind the St Patrick\u2019s Festival (SPF) in Dublin has been hit with a VAT bill of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,11522,63762],"class_list":["post-439377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-revenue-commissioners","tag-st-patricks-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}