Retired doctor agrees €1.86m settlement with Revenue

Valerie Donnelly is one of 61 taxpayers named in defaulters list

Retired consultant obstetrician Valerie Donnelly has agreed a settlement of €1.865 million with Revenue after an audit discovered a €1.145 million shortfall in income tax.

The former Mount Carmel Hospital consultant's settlement is the largest of 61 listed in the quarter tax defaulters list published Tuesday. A total of €9.4 million in settlements was agreed with 61 taxpayers.

Revenue separately disclosed that court action against companies saw a total of €1.55 million in fines imposed. That included a figure of €482,061 levied on the White Sands Hotel in Portmarnock. It was taken to court over a €1.2 million underpayment of corporation tax, VAT, income tax and PRSI.

Former company director John Mulholland of Hughenden Avenue, Antrim Road, Belfast, was found to owe €381,761 in tax, interest and penalties after a Revenue investigation into under declaration of income tax. According to the list, €261,832 was unpaid on March 31st, 2018.

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Ex-solicitor and landlord Andrew G Morrow of Lismore, Raphoe, Co Donegal, paid €35,475.96 following a Revenue audit. Mr Morrow accepted in the High Court four years ago that he used €177, 657 in client funds to pay personal pension contributions, health insurance bills and other costs.

Mary Caviston of the Corner Note Café and Bite Restaurant in Dalkey, Co Dublin was fined €1,266 for failure to hold a current liquor licence.

Ava Trade EU, a company that specialises in online trading of foreign exchange and contracts for difference, has paid just over €210,000 to settle an underpayment of VAT. The company, which trades out of an address in Dublin's Amiens Street and is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland, was the subject of a Revenue audit.

Offaly joiner Colm Brophy, with an address in Gloster, Brosna, in Birr, has agreed a settlement of just over €227,000. Another tradesman, Cork upholsterer Patrick Higgins, is paying more than €298,000 to settle income tax and VAT shortfalls that emerged in a Revenue audit.

Builder Embassy Contractors Ltd, with an address in Cappaghgreen, Dunboyne, Co Meath, paid almost €221.000.

Construction group Felix O'Hare and Co Ltd, of Chancellors Road, Newry paid €238,395 tax and insurance for staff working on contracts in the Republic.

The company had paid tax due for the same employees to the UK revenue in Northern Ireland. It is understood that it is now claiming that money back from the authorities in the North.

Company director and landlord Jamie Conlon, of Rockabill, South Strand, Skerries, Co Dublin, will pay €281,5478 over an initial income tax underpayment of €98,308.

Retired priest Fr James Larkin, with an address in Gorey, agreed a settlement of just over €39,000 related to underdeclared income tax liabilities.

Revenue said the published settlement details reflected only a fraction of the money raised by it through audits and investigations in the three months to the end of March. In total, 1,251 audits and investigations, together with 19,991 risk management interventions yielded €115.63 million in tax, interest, and penalties.

Dominic Coyle

Dominic Coyle

Dominic Coyle is Deputy Business Editor of The Irish Times