Tax avoidance - Defaulters to pay price for tax advice

That folly, or in some cases an arrogance that they would never be caught, could now mean they face prosecution and possibly jail, as well as a bill for interest and penalties up to 300% of the amount outstanding.

This fate, born out of a desire to evade their lawful tax bill, is now a possibility because of sweeping new powers the High Court has given the Revenue Commissioners to pursue shy account holders.

Ironically, they are currently being advised that the taxman has these new powers by the very banks which encouraged them to set up bogus non-resident accounts years ago.

That advice is now going to cost them very dearly. The accounts were used by thousands of people to hide so-called “hot money” since 1986. Many of them were small business people and those with modest lump sums they wanted to invest secretly.

The secret may not be too secret much longer the Revenue Commissioners now have the power to find out exactly from banks and financial institutions exactly who had bank accounts and how much money they had in them.

While the banks who facilitated the accounts have been forced to pay £173 million (208 million) in DIRT, the taxman is now scrutinising those who opened the accounts.

With anything up to 60,000 account holders still to be brought to book, the Revenue Commissioners have a task of enormous proportions ahead of them. But they are motivated by a determination to collect the tens of millions of euro that still remain to be delivered to the Exchequer.

Their targets are not in the league of the Ansbacher defaulters, but the principle is the same. They deliberately, with the connivance of their banks, decided to avoid paying tax due.

To compound their offence, they ignored the November deadline in the hope that the fateful knock would never be on their door, but it was a gamble which only has a slim chance of coming off.

According to a spokesman for the Revenue Commissioners, they are currently working through the courts on 1,800 accounts that had been identified and they are also getting further information on foot of High Court orders.

Inevitably, a help organisation has been formed to give advice and guidance to those who are now, appropriately, in fear of the attention of the taxman.

The Reaction Group for Non-Resident Account Holders claims there could be a social issue

insofar that private individuals will have to suffer for the tax avoidance ethos which pertained in Ireland during the 80s and 90s.

It may be academic, at this stage, to point out that the salient social issue arose when those they seek to represent decided by themselves, or with the encouragement of their banks, not to pay their lawful taxes.