A Mayo farmer who pleaded guilty to seven counts of making incorrect tax returns between 1991 and 1998 and who failed to declare an investment of Ir£150,000 (€190,460) in an offshore account - the CMI account, (Clerical & Medical Insurance) - promoted by National Irish Bank, has been given a two-year suspended sentence on each count.
Frank Morahan (53), Coolistuff, Kilmaine, Co Mayo, who retained a firm of chartered accountants to prepare his accounts during the years under examination and who has paid over €400,000 in tax settlement to the Revenue, was prosecuted before Judge Harvey Kenny at Westport Circuit Court yesterday.
Character witnesses testified to Morahan's good character, describing him as a man who had done "nothing but good" and a "workaholic".
Father Frank Fallon, Kilmaine parish priest, said the Morahans and their four children were good, decent, honest-to-goodness people who worked hard. He had never seen Mrs Morahan without wellingtons on her when he called to the house.
The case was referred from Ballinrobe District Court in March last, during which evidence was given that the defendant owned land worth more than €3 million, despite having declared an annual income of just £400 over a 10-year-period in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1992 livestock on his land was valued at £250,000. Mr Liam Liston, a senior inspector in the prosecution division of the Revenue, described Morahan as having accumulated and amassed assets in a systematic way by acquiring land, building up livestock and making false declarations of income.
Following the initiation in 1998 of inquiries into the defendant's tax affairs, the Revenue received notification from Morahan's agents advising them of the existence of 26 previously undisclosed bank accounts. Eleven of these were USA-based while 15 had Irish addresses. Some of these were referred to as bogus non-resident accounts. The person named in most of the accounts was dead.
Initially, Morahan dealt with the Bank of Ireland and then the ACC and National Irish Bank. NIB was primarily where he had the 26 accounts.
He had also availed of the 1998 tax amnesty. The most serious omissions over the years were the non-declaration of the investment in the CMI account and the investment incomes from assets and off-shore accounts.
Judge Kenny ruled that because Morahan had paid over €316,000 the previous week to the Revenue, because it was his first offence and he had entered a guilty plea at the earliest opportunity, he would impose a suspended two-year sentence on each count, on condition Morahan remain tax compliant for five years. He further imposed a bond on his own surety of €5,000.
