A DUBLIN car dealer has been found guilty of evading vehicle registration tax on luxury cars.
John Dunne (39) of Monastery Park, Clondalkin, Dublin, had pleaded not guilty to eight counts of evading vehicle registration tax on five high-spec Range Rovers and three top-end Audi vehicles between June 2nd, 2005, and September 20th, 2007.
After five hours of deliberating the jury yesterday at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court found him guilty of two of the counts and not guilty on a third.
He was found guilty of evading VRT on a Range Rover 2.7 TDV6 Sport HSE model on February 7th, 2007, and on a Range Rover 3.0 Td6 Vogue model on January 9th, 2006. He registered both cars as lower specification models, resulting in a VRT shortfall of €10,116.
The jury could not come to a decision on the remaining four counts.
On Friday last, he was found not guilty of a further count of tax evasion on an Audi Q7 3 Litre TDI Quattro S-Line model.
During the eight day trial, Dominic McGinn SC, prosecuting, told the court that Dunne had knowingly under declared five high-spec Range Rovers and three top-end Audi vehicles when he registered the cars at the vehicle registration office in Tallaght.
The court heard that Dunne told Det Garda Gary Sheridan from the Criminal Assets Bureau that he hadn’t intentionally under declared the value of the cars.
Dunne’s car dealership, Tony Boland Car Sales, on the Naas Road, Dublin was registering around six or seven cars a week for VRT during the period in question.
One customer, Stephen Tyrell, of Iris Security Solutions, told the court he could barely recall how many Range Rovers he had purchased in 2006.
Dunne told Det Garda Sheridan there was about a €12,000 difference in the retail value between different models of high-spec Range Rovers.
Documentary evidence showed that Dunne or staff working for him had registered a Range Rover Vogue as the lower value Range Rover HSE for the purposes of paying less VRT.
Dunne told Det Garda Sheridan: “I didn’t under declare to my knowledge. I take responsibility but to the best of my knowledge I didn’t present it to save VRT. I didn’t know it was happening.
“I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t bring a Vogue and register it as a Range Rover HSE.”
Dunne also denied that Revenue official Gerard Blaney, working in the VRT office in Tallaght, had ever turned a blind eye during an inspection and said Mr Blaney sometimes made him correct errors in his VRT forms.
He said: “Honestly, he always came out to inspect the jeeps”.
Judge Yvonne Murphy remanded Dunne on bail for sentencing on Friday morning.