Republican News · Thursday 27 June 2002

No Ansbacher amnesties

We must name and shame

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

"There is no hiding place anymore". This was the promise made by 26-County Revenue Commissioners chairperson Frank Daly as he launched their annual report this week. It makes a good headline but leaves lots of questions. When was there a hiding place for tax cheats? Who let them defraud the state? Who wasn't investigating these tax crimes? How long has it been going on?

We know about the 200 Ansbacher account holders, the massive DIRT tax fraud, the NIB tax scam but what do we still not know?

Thirty years of one tax fraud story entered into what must be its last chapter this week with the decision by High Court Justice Joseph Finnegan to allow the full publication of a two and a half year inquiry into the Ansbacher account holders. The 10,000-page report will now be published in full.

In the report there are the details of how up to 200 Irish citizens used illegal offshore accounts to hide money from the 26-County Revenue Commissioners. In some cases, the account holders perpetrated a double tax fraud. Not only were they hiding some of their income from the Revenue Commissioners they were using their money deposited in Ansbacher accounts as loans and then writing off the interest paid against other tax liabilities in the 26 Counties.

The Ansbacher report will be published next week and once again the Revenue Commissioners are making big promises. They will to stick to the Account holders like "limpets" until they have paid up. Fine words, but why did the Revenue Commissioners and more importantly the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Garda and successive governments not have the political will to tackle tax fraud years ago?

At the Revenue Commissioners report launch Frank Daly also highlighted other tax fraud cases including the _227 million got from the 3,675 holders of bogus non-resident accounts. These were Irish citizens who with the active collaboration of their local banks opened tax free deposit accounts pretending that they did not live in Ireland. The Commissioners have already got _220 million from the financial institutions who allowed this fraud to happen.

Alongside this is another _37.22 million got from 430 people who participated in a National Irish Bank tax scam.

We are told that the Revenue Commissioners have 100 people working on a further 1,800 holders of bogus accounts who did not participate in last years Voluntary Disclosure Scheme. Voluntary what you ask?

The same people who this year are promising no hiding place last year let thousands of tax criminals off any prosecution with the simple proviso of returning the sum of money stolen and a cap of 100% on top in terms of interest owed and other penalties. The 100% penalty is not a big deal as a lot of tax criminals invest their money and the penalties are only a way of taking back the extra money they should never have theirs in the first place.

The fact that 1,800 people ignored this amnesty shows just how cocky the tax cheats have become in our society. This brings us back full circle. How did we get to have such a culture of tax evasion?

It's a simple story. Successive governments allowed a culture of tax avoidance to emerge where tax could be legally avoided through agreed schemes. Today there are at least 70 such reliefs available. This lead to people and companies taking a step further into illegal tax evasion schemes. The politicians who were supposed to protect us and take the legislative steps to stop tax fraud were either being funded by companies involved in illegal and dubious practices or were in many cases, when you consider people like Haughey, Lowry, Burke, Foley and Flynn, actively involved in one form of fraud or another.

Why is it that none of the management of any of the financial institutions who allowed the DIRT fraud to happen were ever prosecuted? Why have the Revenue Commissioners been forced to go to court to get the necessary orders to force banks and building societies to give them the details on tax DIRT tax cheats?

Why? Because there still are lots of hiding places, lots of tax criminals and lots of helpful people along the way. We have a tax crime culture in Ireland. The Revenue Commissioners have laid down a marker. It will only be met if the government, the Gardaí and the DPP play their part. The clock is ticking.

Crowe welcomes Ansbacher decision

Sinn Féin TD for Dublin South West, Sean Crowe, welcomed Monday's High Court decision that the Ansbacher report be published in full. He called on the Minister to move speedily to outline how the matter will now be dealt with.

"I would call on the minister to move speedily to outline how the matter will now be dealt with," said Crowe. "Anybody who held one of these accounts has, at least, very serious questions to answer. But we already know, by the nature of these accounts, that many were involved in massive tax evasion.

"The Ansbacher abuses were not an aberration. Successive governments created the atmosphere of corruption in which the Ansbacher account holders flourished.

"It is time to name and shame those who have profited from the misery of others in our society. It is time also to learn the lessons of Ansbacher and other financial scandals and bring forward proper rules and regulations to prevent the wealthy and the well-connected from avoiding paying their fair share."