FG complained over Ahern’s tax compliance

FINE GAEL made a complaint to SIPO in 2008 about former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who was trying to fend off the Mahon Tribunal probe into his financial dealings at the time.

The complaint centred on the tax clearance certificate Mr Ahern obtained following the 2002 general election to meet the requirements of new ethics legislation, which obliged all TDs to demonstrate to SIPO that their tax affairs were in order.

To obtain the certificate, Mr Ahern made a declaration to Revenue that he was tax compliant.

But given that the tribunal had unearthed details of undeclared payments which Mr Ahern accepted from businessmen in the 1990s, Fine Gael believed Mr Ahern could not possibly have been compliant when he made the 2002 declaration.

Mr Ahern, however, insisted that, to the best of his knowledge, he had been tax compliant.

After considering the matter, SIPO decided to put its inquiry on hold until Revenue completed its own probe of Mr Ahern’s tax affairs.

“The Standards Commission decided it would not be appropriate for it to pursue the matter until the Revenue Commissioners had completed their consideration of Mr Ahern’s tax liabilities,” it said in its report yesterday.

“It is a matter solely for the Revenue Commissioners to determine whether a person is tax compliant.

“Consequently, any question as to whether a person may have made a false declaration as to his or her own tax compliance can only be addressed once the Revenue Commissioners had made a determination that the person was not in compliance with his or her obligations under the relevant tax legislation.”

SIPO wrote to Mr Ahern in 2008 informing him of the decision.

It also informed him that in the event that the Revenue Commissioners made a determination in his case that he was not in compliance, SIPO could decide to consider the matter again at that stage.