Supreme Court: O’Flynns used scheme to avoid tax on £600k

PROPERTY developers Michael and John O’Flynn used a “highly artificial” tax avoidance scheme 20 years ago to avoid paying tax on almost £600,000 in dividends, the Supreme Court has ruled.

In 1997, the Revenue Commissioners found the two directors of O’Flynn Construction used a complicated tax avoidance scheme to avoid paying tax on £298,000 in tax-free export sales relief dividends which each received in January 1992.

“It is possible to admire the ingenuity with which the scheme was devised and efficiency with which it was executed, but lament the fact that such skills are put to use for the sole objective of avoiding tax,” Mr Justice Donal O’Donnell said in the Supreme Court ruling yesterday. He added that the scheme was “highly artificial” and contrived, involving more than 40 steps over a period of 50 days between December 5, 1991, and January 24, 1992.