A MAYO discount store owner made a €1.5 million settlement with Revenue in the first quarter of the year, the latest tax defaulters’ list shows.

Seán Joyce of Castlebar, Co Mayo paid €493,304 in underdeclared tax plus a further €994,438 in interest and penalties. The shop-owner’s settlement related to a bogus non-resident account, and represented the largest of 78 settlements published yesterday, which generated a tax haul for the exchequer of €15.56 million.

Of this tax yield, the Revenue’s investigations into bogus non-resident accounts contributed €3.4 million. A further €2.22 million was generated from 12 settlements arising from investigations into offshore funds, while seven settlements relating to single premium insurance products cases yielded €1.41 million.

Some 39 settlements were for amounts in excess of €100,000, and of these, eight exceeded €500,000. Only Mr Joyce’s settlement reached seven figures.

Nursing home proprietor Robert Fagan of Sandymount, Dublin 4, paid a total of €925,000 in income tax, interest and penalties after undergoing a Revenue audit. Since 1989 the Fagan family has owned and operated two nursing homes in south Dublin – Ailesbury Private Nursing Home in Sandymount and Ashbury Nursing Home in Blackrock. The family also owns and runs Homecare Options, which provides care in private homes.

Ten of the 78 tax defaulters named yesterday were landlords or involved in property letting. A Revenue spokeswoman said that this was not the result of any special targeting of the rental sector.

“We always keep an eye on the cash economy, where people have the potential not to declare the correct amount of income,” she said.

One of the largest of these settlements was made by landlord Nicholas Roche of Shankill, Dublin 18, who paid a total of €555,000 following a Revenue investigation.

The settlements published yesterday represented just a portion of the Revenue’s audits and investigations settled in the three months to March 31st, 2011.