Crackdown on tax defaulters nets €100m

THE Revenue Commissioners’ latest crackdown on tax defaulters has yielded over €100 million in unpaid tax, interest and penalties in the first three months of the year.

Revenue’s quarterly list of tax settlements, which was published yesterday, features 173 cases worth a total of €21m where tax defaulters were named and shamed. A further 2,680 settlements yielded €79m, but details were not published because they were worth less than €12,700 each.

The list includes a €106,000 payment from South Dublin County Council for VAT irregularities and a €1.6m bill for a Navan furniture company and its two directors. Also on the list is Denis Wilson, a retired medical consultant from Montenotte in Cork, who settled for €126,000. Dr Wilson is the father of actress Fiona Shaw. The settlement related to undeclared income and was one of Revenue’s bogus non-resident account cases.

The biggest individual settlement was made by Eugene Hardiman, a doctor from Rooskey, Co Roscommon. Dr Hardiman paid €1.4m in interest, tax and penalties for under-declaring income and holding a bogus non-resident account.

Former top restaurant owner John Oppermann was hit with a bill for over €65,000, after tax liabilities were uncovered during a high-profile probe covering accounts held with Ansbacher bank. Kildare-based vet James Sheeran, who worked for showjumper Cian O’Connor, paid over €17,000.

South Dublin County Council failed to pay its full VAT liability on imported goods and services between January 2003 and January 2004. The underpayment was picked up by a Revenue audit last year and uncovered a flaw in the council’s system for processing invoices.

“The under-declaration, while regrettable, was not intentional,” the council said in a statement.

Beechmount Furniture in Navan was hit with a settlement totalling nearly €880,000 after a Revenue investigation discovered the company failed to declare money due under the VAT, PAYE and PRSI regimes.

Company directors Patrick and John Sherlock, also from Navan, reached individual settlements worth around €477,000 and €273,000. Revenue said the payments were agreed after similar investigations into offshore assets, bogus non-resident accounts and under-declaration of income tax.

Other cases highlighted separately by Revenue yesterday include fines imposed on the operators of two pubs for possession of counterfeit spirits.

Clancy’s Bar in Youghal, Co Cork, and The Auld Triangle on Dublin’s Dorset Street received fines totalling €3,600 during the quarter.

Labour finance spokesperson Joan Burton said the latest list of defaulters provided “further stark evidence” of a continuing culture of tax evasion in sections of Irish society.