Businessman to be sentenced over tax evasion

A Dublin businessman who paid almost €10m in the largest ever Revenue settlement is to be sentenced today for tax evasion.

Leslie Reynolds, from Sutton, north Dublin, pleaded guilty in July to 30 charges of making incorrect VAT returns, incorrect returns for employees’ and personal income tax.

He also admitted filing incorrect corporation tax returns, and concealing income from the Revenue Commissioners.

In September the 71-year-old settled with the Revenue for a total of €9.5m.

His firm, Leslie Reynolds & Co Ltd, East Wall Road, Dublin, is involved in the sale and distribution of engineering components.

The settlements arose out of a Revenue audit, with the company found to have under-declared income tax, VAT and PAYE/PRSI. It had to pay tax of €3.5m, and interest and penalties of €6m.

Reynolds was also found to have under declared his income tax and corporation tax. He had to pay tax of €112,000 and interest and penalties of €288,000.

His case was one of 170 settlements, totalling €39.5m listed in the tax defaulters list, Iris Oifigiuil, in September.

In July the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard Reynolds used bank accounts in Britain and Spain to hold funds he had not declared to the Revenue.

During his trial it emerged the pensioner used two sets of bank accounts to run the business. Reynolds filed all income from regular customers to a declared account but hid income from occasional customers.

He recorded sales to regular customers on a computer, this was disclosed to the Revenue, and the money was lodged with the company’s account in Bank of Ireland.

But the court was told he invoiced occasional customers manually and did not disclose these sales to Revenue.

Instead he lodged the cash in an account in the company’s name in Ulster Bank on O’Connell Street, Dublin, or in an account jointly held by himself and his wife, Emily, in Allied Irish Bank in Finglas.

Between 1979 and 1997 he made lodgements totalling €4m to accounts with the Ulster Bank and AIB.

In addition, his company made payments to a fictitious company in Sussex, England, called Essential Supplies.