"Ill gotten gains" raise £1m in taxes

THE Revenue Commissioners have raised about £1 million in taxes from the "ill-gotten gains of suspected or known criminals, Dublin City Council's Prevention of Crime Committee learned yesterday.

The committee was briefed by two senior Revenue officers who told them that "in the region of £1 million" has been collected in seven "Section 19" assessments, named after the provision in the 1983 Finance Act which allows Revenue to assess wealth gained from illegal or unknown activities.

A number of other cases were being examined, the committee was told, which the Revenue hoped would result in Section 19 assessments. These included cases brought to the Commissioners' attention by Customs and Excise, the gardai, and the Revenue's own intelligence operations.

But the director of Revenue's Special Inquiry Branch, Mr Paddy Donnelly, said it was not its function to establish whether assets had accumulated from criminal activities: "Its objective is to prove ownership of the assets and establish a tax charge which can, if necessary be sustained in court."

While some of those assessed may have earned money from dealing in "hard" drugs, Revenue had no special knowledge of the extent of earnings from "soft" drug dealing, according to Mr Sean Moriarty, assistant secretary in charge of compliance.

"We don't have a fix on the amount of money earned from soft drugs - if we did we'd be in there with Section 19 prosecutions," he said.