USING the wrong colour ink when making returns to the Companies Registration Office could cost firms thousands of pounds, a court has been told.

Judge Liam Devally in the Circuit Civil Court was told that G & G Marketing and Investment Ltd, Killala, Co Mayo, had been fined £1,000 in the District Court for failing to make its annual returns in 1994.

Ms Jeri Ward, counsel for the company, said the firm had never traded and its owner had been dealing with the accounts. He had made the returns on a number of occasions but in blue ink.

"Apparently the returns should have been made in black ink as an electronic scanner used by the Companies Office does not pick up markings in blue ink," Ms Ward told the court.

Ms Ward said that, as a result of this error, on a number of occasions the returns kept coming back unregistered. She said the returns had now been made.

Judge Devally reduced the £1,000 fine to one of £120.

Dealing with 15 other appeals by companies against fines of up to £3,000 for failing to make returns, Judge Devally said tracing the affairs of companies was costing the State millions of pounds every year.

"Everyone is paying for it except the people involved in companies," he said.

"It is those people in the PAYE sector who are footing the bill for a whole army of civil servants doing this work," he added.

He warned people who formed companies that they had to make returns every year whether their companies traded or not.

If they did not trade they were obliged to make nil returns or have their company struck off the register.