The Supreme Court has overturned a judgment for £1.77 million (€2.25 million) in alleged outstanding taxes granted to the Criminal Assets Bureau against a Dublin man.
The five-judge Supreme Court unanimously upheld an appeal against the High Court judgment which consisted of £1.29 million (€1.64 million) in income tax for the years 1988/89 to 1997/98 and £481,484 (€615.1678) for VAT for the same period.
The appeal was made by a man who cannot be named for legal reasons.
It held the Bureau was not entitled to seek such judgment in circumstances where tax assessments in relation to the applicant were not, at the time the proceedings were taken, final and conclusive under the tax legislation. It also said that no prior demand for payment of the tax alleged to be due had been made by CAB.
The man had also not exhausted his right to appeal against the assessments to the Revenue Appeals Commissioners.
CAB began inquiries in 1998 into the affairs of the businessman, formerly of Ballyfermot, but now understood to be living in Spain, after it received information that he was involved in the illegal importation of tobacco products and fireworks and the subsequent sale of these products on the streets.
It transpired the man had not made any tax returns for at least 10 years and that his wife had been claiming social welfare payments from 1990 to 1995 with him named as a dependent. Financial accounts obtained by CAB disclosed that, in a ten year period between 1988 and 1998, some £3 million (€3.81 million) had passed through various bank accounts in the names of the couple.
CAB raised assessments on the man for income tax and VAT totalling £1.77 million (€2.25 million) and took legal proceedings. Injunctions were granted restraining the couple from reducing their assets below the sum of £1.77 million. In June 2001, the High Court granted judgment in that sum to CAB against the couple, who appealed to the Supreme Court.