Development firms hit with €10m bill for dodging tax
Two connected companies involved in lucrative property and land developments and the three men who run them have been hit with a €10m bill for tax dodging, it emerged today.
Following its latest investigations, the Revenue secured payments totalling €9.3m from George, James and Ray Stanley and their businesses Swanward Enterprises and Stanley Macadam Road Surfacing.
It was the second time Swanward has been caught dodging tax. In late 2002, the firm was forced to pay €101,061 in unpaid tax and penalties for underdeclaration of VAT.
The Stanleys, property and land developers based in Blackchurch Business Park, Rathcoole, Co Dublin, agreed to pay €2.92m for underdeclaration of VAT as part of a Revenue audit case.
They also made individual payments totalling €357,888.
Swanward Enterprises Ltd, which has been involved in upmarket developments such as Furness Manor in Johnstown Village, Naas, was ordered to pay €5.33m for underdeclaration of corporation tax, VAT and PAYE/PRSI.
The quarterly list of tax defaulters, published in Iris Oifigiuil, showed there were 138 settlements with the Exchequer totalling €27.68m.
In the three-month period to September 30, 2005 the total yield from Revenue audits and investigations was €164m.
There were three single payments of more than €1m. Two payments related to the Stanley’s property and land development firms. A third payment came from Patrick Duff, a company director from Headfort Road, Kells, Co Meath.
Mr Duff was ordered to pay a total of €1.036m in unpaid tax and penalties for underdeclaration of income tax and VAT in a Revenue Bogus Non-Resident Account case.
Iris Oifigiúil detailed 73 settlements totalling €8.99m from Bogus Non-Resident account holders, and only one settlement of €120,000 relating to an Ansbacher account.
The Revenue secured 14 payments of €2.24m following investigations into offshore funds and three settlements totalling €1.35m after the Revenue’s National Irish Bank probe.
For the first time there were settlements relating to the Revenue’s Single Premium Insurance Product Investigation, with four settlements totalling €1.03m.
Anthony Cassidy, of St Orans Road, Buncrana, Co Donegal, made the single biggest settlement in relation to this probe. He is a company director in a builders’ suppliers firm and was ordered to make the payment for underdeclaration of income tax and VAT.
One settlement resulted in a prison term. Aidan Price, from Rathangan, Co Kildare, was jailed for one day, suspended for a year, for failing to lodge income-tax returns for rental income.
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council is also listed as a defaulter after settling for just under €40,000 for underdeclaring VAT.
