This is the annual row, usually timed for late January or early February, when opposition politicians accuse the government of hoodwinking the vast bulk of taxpayers by keeping them in the dark about basic entitlements. Current estimates of the amount of tax credits and allowances that go unclaimed each year stand at 100m, all because people do not know or simply don't bother claiming relief for medical expenses, rent, bin charges and a host of other expenses.

It's a nice big figure which shows that a lot of what the government grants in Budget giveaways is stolen back in other ways, often from the vulnerable and the ill informed.

The scandal of unclaimed tax allowances has been grist to the mill for an opposition desperate for a lucky break and an opportunity for the media, this newspaper included, to rail against the injustice of it all.

But with a general election in the air, the government is determined to dodge this banana skin in 2007. In his Budget speech, Brian Cowen promised that the Revenue will be doing a lot more to unite us with our tax entitlements. The work will happen behind the scenes so that we should get all of our credits and allowances automatically without having to ask or even know they exist.

To fulfil its promise, the Revenue will need to gather a lot more information, which means hooking up with the social welfare authorities, banks, trade unions, employers, the VHI and other health insurers, and even third-level colleges.

It's a mammoth task that will keep armies of penpushers busy as they keep tabs on the rest of us. When we hit 65 years of age, the social welfare will notify the Revenue so that it can give us the special age tax credit, an exemption of Dirt, and maybe even take us out of the tax net altogether if we earn less than 19,000 a year.

When we buy prescription drugs, the Health Services Executive will tip off the taxman so that he can give us the appropriate relief for medical expenses. When our children go to thirdlevel education, the colleges will notify the Revenue so that it can give us automatic relief for tuition fees.

This covert sharing of information might alarm anybody prone to conspiracy theories but the Revenue insists its intentions are completely honourable, aimed at enriching rather than trapping us.

An even bigger question is whether all this checking and double checking will simply be an enormous waste of time and Revenue resources.

While nobody knows for sure, doctors' and dentists' bills must account for a big chunk of unclaimed medical expenses, which in turn make up the lion's share of the unclaimed tax allowances. Yet these bills will remain outside the Revenue's web, at least for now. This leaves it up to the taxpayer to diligently gather up GP bills and submit them to the tax office at the end of the year.

Few people have bothered to keep up with the paperwork in the past so there's no reason to believe that anything is going to change.

As for the expenses that the Revenue will be busily chasing up on our behalf from next year, the reality is that many are simply not worth the bother. The tax saving for trade union subscriptions is a maximum 60 a year. The average pensioner's Dirt refund is 200. The age tax credit puts just 275 a year in a pensioner's pocket.

These are hardly the sort of numbers that justify the bureaucratic nightmare the Revenue is talking about, not to mention the disruption that will be caused in the third-party agencies and bodies pressganged into supplying the information needed to make it all work.

It would be a lot simpler, and less costly, to give everybody an extra few quid in the personal tax credit and leave it at that.