Dunnes tax cut ruling nonsense: ex-official
Christopher Clayton told the Moriarty Tribunal yesterday that he firmly disagreed with the ruling that the family trust of the supermarket group would have its tax bill cut to zero.
The tribunal is investigating how a potential tax bill of £38.8m for Dunnes Stores was cut to £16m following a meeting between Ben Dunne and the Revenue chairman, Seamus Paircéir in April 1987.
The meeting was arranged at the request of Taoiseach, Charles Haughey. The inquiry has uncovered payments totalling £8.5m from wealthy businessmen to Mr Haughey between 1987 and 1993, including £1.9m from Dunnes Stores.
Mr Clayton told the tribunal it was wrong for the appeals body to base its decision on the issue of the power of the Dunnes Stores trust to appoint an asset to an individual and then reclaim it back. He pointed out that the Appeals Commissioners "did not seem very confident about their decision" and had assumed that the Revenue would appeal their decision to the courts.
However, the tax authorities did not appeal the ruling by the Appeals Commissioners, based on legal advice received in 1988 by Revenue barrister, Niall Fennelly, who is now a Supreme Court judge. Mr Clayton said the Revenue should have appealed the decision as it involved a sum of £16m which is worth around 40m in today's value. "The cost of going to the Supreme Court would have been minimal by comparison," Mr Clayton said.
Meanwhile, Mr Paircéir's successor as Revenue chairman, Philip Curran, said he was not aware that his predecessor had become a tax adviser to Mr Dunne following his retirement.
Mr Curran, who also held a meeting with Mr Dunne at the request of Mr Haughey in March 1988, said he was unaware of a similar earlier meeting between the supermarket owner and Mr Paircéir.
However, he said he did not believe there was anything unusual for the Taoiseach to ask him to meet a taxpayer.
"I think it was Mr Haughey's way of operating wanting to be personally involved in things," he said.
