Out of 26 countries, Ireland has ranked 11th when it comes to expected and actual VAT returns.

The European Commission has published figures showing that an estimated €168bn in VAT revenue is lost each year to fraud and evasion, among other reasons.

In most countries, the average is just under 14% between actual and predicted returns.

The lowest is in Finland at 4%, while Ireland’s is 10.6% and the highest gap is in Romania at 41%.