Kildare businessman jailed for €1.6m tax fraud
A prominent campaigner for reform of the security industry who defrauded over €1.6m from the Revenue has been jailed for two years.
Gary Wynne (aged 38) avoided paying tax on over €4m in income by claiming to transfer his VAT inclusive invoices to a fictitious company, rendering his company, Loganroy Security Ltd, VAT neutral.
A Revenue investigator, John Flynn, has said today's jailing sends out a marker to all tax evadersand that prison penalties do increase tax compliance.
Wynne provided door staff to many well-known Dublin premises including Vicar Street and Eamon Dorans.
Prosecuting counsel, Dominic McGinn SC, said that Wynne owes a total of €1,670,207 to the Revenue, including €759,000 in back taxes and another €911,207 in interest.
Judge Patricia Ryan said that his early guilty plea, lack of previous convictions and €30,000 handed into court by Wynne as a “practical expression of remorse” were mitigating factors against the maximum allowable penalty of five years imprisonment.
She imposed a concurrent sentence of three years with one year suspended for each of ten counts of tax evasion.
The company set up by Wynne in 1997, Loganroy Security Ltd, also pleaded guilty to the same offences and Judge Ryan imposed a fine of €10,000 on each count with two years to pay.
The firm has ceased trading and gone into liquidation and Judge Ryan said the fine may be “an academic exercise” because of their likely inability to pay.
Details were previously heard of Wynne’s extensive lobbying of the government for the establishment of the Private Security Authority because he wanted to “professionalise” the industry.
Wynne of Kellystown Lane, Leixlip, Kildare and Loganroy Security Ltd of Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin pleaded guilty to ten counts of submitting incorrect invoices and VAT returns to the Revenue between 1997 and 2003.
Gerard Dunne (aged 47) of Steeplechase Wood, Skyrne Road, Ratoath, Co Meath, who was the chief operations manager of Loganroy Security Ltd faces sentence on similar charges.
The company supplied doormen to various premises around Dublin. The fraud involved Wynne pretending to subcontract the security work to a fake business, Alert Security Ltd.
When customers submitted VAT inclusive payment to Loganroy, Wynne claimed to transfer the invoices to Alert Security, meaning they were liable for the VAT.
In total 324 invoices were transferred to the fake company, amounting to over €4m in income.
