Revenue investigators net €123m

THE Revenue Commissioners audit and investigation teams collected €123.3 million from tax defaulters in the three months to the end of September.

However, the names of just 111 people and companies who were tax defaulters were published yesterday by the Revenue Commissioners. The 111 settlements that have been agreed by taxpayers, whose name fall to be published under legislation, total €24.21m.

One company was responsible for almost a third of the €24.21m collected from defaulters whose names were published.

Condron Concrete, Arden Road, Tullamore, Co Offaly, made the third biggest ever published settlement with the Revenue Commissioners with a €8.1m payment to the exchequer.

The company led by its octogenarian founder John Condron underpaid tax by €2.9m, and with penalties and interest of €5.2m paid the revenue a total of €8.1m.

The biggest published settlement ever made with the Revenue was with Bovale Developments, the building company owned by Michael and Tom Bailey. They made a payment of €22m in 2006 to the commissioners.

The second biggest published settlement was made by Leslie Reynolds & Company Ltd, 126 East Wall Road, Dublin who made a settlement of €9.5m in 2005.

Yesterday’s figures show that company directors, followed by builders, retailers and farmers were the leading occupations among those who made settlements.

The biggest number of defaulters came from Dublin, 39, followed by Cork eight, and Kerry, eight, and Galway six.

Of the 111 published settlements 44 were for amounts exceeding €100,000; of which nine exceeded €500,000 and two of that none exceeded €1,000,000.

Of the 111 settlements: five settlements totalling €1.41m relate to bogus non-resident account holders, 24 settlements totalling €12.28m relate to Revenue investigations into offshore funds and 19 settlements totalling €3.44m relate to Revenue’s single premium insurance products cases.

The published settlements reflect a portion only of all Revenue audits and investigations concluded in the three-month period to 30 September 2008. The total yield from Revenue audit and investigation programmes settled in the period 1 July 2008 to 30 September 2008 was €123.30m.