Livingstone tells of murder case arrest

A retired tax official told the DIRT inquiry he was questioned about the murder of his wife in 1993.

Mr James Livingstone, who retired last year, told a hushed committee room he was moved from the special inquiry branch in 1993 after he had been questioned by the gardai about the murder of his wife. Ms Grace Livingstone was found dead at the couple's Malahide, Co Dublin, home.

Replying to Mr Pat Rabbitte, TD for Dublin South West, Mr Livingstone said 1993 was a "very difficult year" for him. "I had been falsely arrested by the guards on a capital charge of murder for killing my wife and I may not have been at my best at that time.

"Possibly my welfare was being considered and somebody thought maybe I should have a change. I don't know the reason. I can make that deduction."

Giving evidence about his tax work he said people caught by the Revenue Commissioners with bogus non-resident deposit accounts claimed they were "incited" by the banks to open them. Mr Livingstone said a bank in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, was "the one where there was an open admission of complicity by the poor taxpayers whom we caught.

"Let's face it, they were in a state of shock. It was a massive paper chase," he said. "But we did find tax evasion and were very satisfied to find tax evasion. When you shift a lot of paper in front of you and move files flying all around you and you get one, that's a score." They recovered £200,000 in DIRT and £2 million in other taxes.

He said it was "great when you'd score but to be presented with 50,000 non-resident declarations was a formidable task" when he had a million other returns.

It took over a year to put together and they went there based on "other intelligence that we got regarding trading patterns in that area".

Mr Livingstone said he set up the special inquiry branch into tax evasion in May 1979 and ran it for 14 years. It was established in light of the "agitation" that year when there were tax marches.

"Trade unions wanted more action taken to protect the PAYE person and to pursue the self-employed and that was the origins."

Giving details of how the branch carried out its work he said it was in essence an "intelligence gathering agency". Generally, cases involving a calculated loss in excess of £50,000 were referred to them. "We were a silent service and had a very low profile."

They weren't interested in the flight of capital but only in "uncovering pure tax evasion".

He pointed out that in the year 1982 to 1983 the banks made 1.6 million returns, after a change in the Finance Act.

Ten years later they were still making detections from that information.