Kerry tax defaulters top €100m list

TAX defaulters in Kerry topped the table in Revenue’s list of settlements that was published yesterday.

The county was home to 22 of the 173 major settlements in the three months to March. Dublin was next on the list with 16, while Cork and Galway featured highly with 13 tax defaulters each.

The settlements that were published brought in €21 million of the €100 million collected in Revenue’s crackdown during the quarter. A further 2,680 cases fell below the €12,700 threshold for publication. These were worth a total of €79 million.

Farmers made up the biggest category of the published settlements, with 32 cases worth a total of €3.4 million, while 21 company directors reached settlements worth more than €3.6 million. A total of 22 builders were hit with a combined bill of €2 million.

Bogus non-resident account holders accounted for 105 of the published settlements and were worth over €14 million of the €21 million total. One case related to an Ansbacher bank account threw up €650,000, while a further €540,000 came from a single case arising from Revenue’s probe into National Irish Bank. Investigations into offshore funds uncovered 13 cases that ended with settlements worth €2.4 million.

Revenue also published details of smaller fines levied on individuals and businesses. The operating company behind the Tralee Waterworld leisure facility was fined €1,225 for failing to lodge corporation tax returns. Fines worth €2,535 were handed out to the company behind the Santa’s Kingdom event for failing to lodge P35 employment-related returns.

Two pubs, The Auld Triangle on Dublin’s Dorset Street and Clancy’s Bar in Youghal, Co Cork, were fined for possession of counterfeit spirits. There were also fines for two filling stations, Discount Fuels in Monasterevin, Co Kildare, and Howley’s Service Station in Gort, Co Galway, which paid €950 and €1,900 respectively for possession of laundered diesel.

Labour finance spokesperson Joan Burton said Revenue should be congratulated for their success in identifying offenders and forcing settlements. “I suspect that a considerable amount of this is in respect of people owning up in advance of the deadline for undisclosed funds invested in life assurance policies,” she added.

But Ms Burton also warned that more court prosecutions would be necessary to discourage people from avoiding tax and remove the perception that the risks around tax defaulting were worth taking.