Tax expert and high-profile doctors on latest defaulters’ list

A leading tax lecturer and a number of high profile doctors have been caught by routine Revenue audits and appear in the latest list of tax defaulters.

Mel Kilkenny, from Ballina in Co Tipperary, who lectures on tax at City Colleges in Dublin and is one of 67 people to feature on the quarterly list, made a settlement of nearly €285,000.

He is the author of the Kilkenny Tax Publications, a series of textbooks used by students taking their Acca (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) examinations.

According to his profile on City Colleges, he also spent a number of years as an examiner for the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ireland and the Irish Tax Institute

The highest settlement was made by prominent Mallow publican Billy O’Flynn, whose Lodge Bar is a well known musical venue in the area. Mr O’Flynn was also subject to a routine Revenue audit, which discovered a €1.2 million underdeclaration of income a tax and capital gains tax. After penalties and interest of €1.41.87 million, Mr O’Flynn’s settlement amounted to €3.1 million.

Four doctors also appear on the list. Fiona Mulcahy, a professor at Trinity College and medical director of the Department of Genito Urinary Medicine and Infectious Disease at St James’s Hospital, has agreed a settlement of €94,141.60.

Dr Mulcahy is also chairwoman of the National Aids Strategy Committee.

Like consultant anaesthologist and well known runner Dermot Lowe from Galway and Beacon Hospital-based consultant gastroenterologist Niall Breslin, Prof Mulcahy operated a business out of an address close to Queen’s University in Belfast.

Dr Lowe’s settlement comes to almost €356,000 while Dr Breslin’s was just over €175,000. A fourth doctor, Cork GP Saleem Sharif, made a €733,650 settlement.

Dr Sharif, who runs his own practice in Ballyphehane, was found guilty of poor professional performance by the Irish Medical Council in 2011 on foot of a complaint about his treatment of a patient with a history of cardiac problems .

The highest settlement after Mr O'Flynn was made by Arklow restaurateur Sau Kuen Hung who made a settlement of €1.24 million for the underdeclaration of the VAT and income tax.

There were two other settlements which exceeded €1 million. Retired company director Terence O’Brien from Killiney in Dublin made a settlement of €1.1 million for the underdeclaration of income tax and for a case linked to the Revenue’s ongoing investigation into offshore assets and funds.

CDRN property developers in Cork, a partnership involving John Casey, Sean Rainey, Andrew Neave and Paul Duggan, also made a settlement for just over €1 million for the underdeclaration of VAT.

The bulk of the settlements follow routine audits by Revenue. The settlements raised nearly €14 million for the exchequer.

Settlements with tax defaulters have netted the Revenue nearly €54 million so far this year