Tax defaulters hit with €2.8m settlements over €1.25m in tax due

A company that used to make log cabins but is now in liquidation is the highlight of the latest tax defaulters’ list.

Loghouse Living Limited has been hit with a settlement of more than €1 million for under-declaring its liability for VAT. Penalties and interest make up over 60 per cent of the bill, with the tax owing amounting to just over €390,000.

The company was one of just nine names to feature in the list published by the Revenue Commissioners on Tuesday with settlements amounting to €2.8 million in relation to €1,25 million in tax owed.

Revenue notes that settlements are published only when individuals and companies do not avail of “extensive voluntary disclosure options” and the “default arises because of careless or deliberate behaviour”.

Student accommodation: A market plagued by bed shortages, rising rents and 51-week leases

---

An attempt to buy the next election with a giveaway budget would be a gross miscalculation

---

The outlook for interest rate cuts is changing - so should Irish borrowers be worried?

---

IDA gives Intel €30m in aid package

---

Two company directors were also named in the most recent defaulters’ list — David Cahill, with an address in Enniskerry Road, Kilternan in Dublin, and David Magee, of Carrig Lane, in Blessington, Co Wicklow.

Mr Cahill settled for just shy of €80,000 after an audit discovered he had underpaid income tax. Mr Magee was subject to an investigation into offshore assets and has paid a bill of more than €620,000., the largest settlement after Loghouse Living.

Carrigaline-based marine fish supplier POS Fishing Limited has also paid its settlement of €335,339 after being found to have underdeclared its liability to corporation tax, PAYE, PRSI, USC and VAT following a Revenue audit.

VAT was also the issue for haulier Kevin Judge, with an address in Robertstown, Co Kildare, whose bill came to €224,595.

In the case of Thomas Coloe, with an address in Swords, whose occupation is given as disc jockey, he was pursued over failure to declare a liability to capital gains tax as well as under-declaring his exposure to income tax and VAT. Almost all of his settlement of €149,092 remained unpaid at the end of the quarter, one of four settlements in that position.

Income tax was a focus of several settlements including fast food restaurateur Yen Ung Thi, whose Santry takeaway trades as Sans Sans who paid €124,549, and famer and former soffit and fascia contractors Thomas Donoghue, of Knockdrumagh, Myshall, Co Carlow, who was hit with a €115,371 settlement over an initial failure to pay €75,285 in tax.

Abina Leahy, a former restaurateur from Glanmire in Cork had a €97,442 bill outstanding at the end of September for underpaying VAT and income tax.

Revenue noted that the published settlements amount to just a fraction of the tax authority’s interventions. It said that it has conducted 255 audits and investigations in the three months to the end of September alongside 3,180 “risk management interventions” which together yielded €81.8 million in outstanding tax, interest and penalties.