Revenue charging me for returns I didn't know I had to file
Hi all, to give some context my mother was setting up a company for her local cafe, when creating the company in 2019 she asked me to be the Company Secretary and also said she would give me 30% ownership, we signed all the forms etc. nothing more was mentioned by the accountant or solicitor other than wishing us good luck.
I don't work for my mother, I've always had my own job and just help her out with forms, letters, documentation and that kind of thing. I don't earn any money, salary, dividends from the company, my total earnings listed by Revenue from the company from 2019 to 2026 is exactly €0.00.
Now the problem - My partner and I were trying to apply for the HTB scheme and it came up I had incomplete tax returns between 2023 - 2025, when I went onto Revenue it said I had to register for ROS and file Form 11s - so completed that process and went to file Form 11's for 2023-2025 - and then I saw the late fees.
I'm being charged close to €2,000 for not filing these Form 11s that I had no idea I was supposed to do. Doing a bit of research I saw in 2023 a new bit of legislation came into force which links directors to their PPSN and since then I have officially been listed as a Proprietary Director by Revenue.
I'm not trying to avoid my obligations, especially since I earned no money — I genuinely had no notification that my tax status had changed, and the moment I found out, I started the process of getting compliant.
I want to speak to the Revenue to see if I can get these charges dropped but I'm worried that they will then also charge me for late filings between 2019-2022.
TLDR; I didn't know I was a Proprietary Director and have been hit with a €2,000 late fee - is there anything I can do?