Mick Wallace underpayment of VAT

oldnick said:
Owning a small business for 3oyrs+ my wife and I would go into paroxysms of anxiety if we were tardy in submitting accounts, if we thought we'd erred in any Corp tax, PAYE, Vat,breached any Health and Safety rule, Travel Trade rules and regulations and a myriad other public laws.

We lost money in the last couple of years -traded badly and eventually closed the business with not a penny more than we put into it.
Our average earnings over 30 years were, each of us, little more than the average industrial income- half that amount in the last year.

When we closed the business we made sure that employees, creditors, Revenue/VAT were fully paid inc. redundancy.

Did we behave like this because we're idiots, cowards or because we're not Irish?
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I'd say: Not the first one, maybe a tiny bit of the second one, and a largely the third one! But really, ye were obviously just well brought up, so I say blame the parents...! :)
 
mandelbrot said:
Maybe we can come back here next week when the list is published and have a look at some of the other people who have big settlements against their names, and condemn them as well. We might have people who occupied positions of trust or responsibility, and we can single them out for special condemnation...
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Well yeah, there's no way a TD on that list will not get singled out.
 
I had the same gut reaction as everyone here when I saw Mick Wallace defending himself on the TV. "Tax evader. He should resign and he should go to jail. That €2m could be spent on the health service or whatever."

And just to be clear, I don't like Mick Wallace and tend to turn off the TV when I see him on it.

But Mandlebrot is making some interesting points which are worth thinking about.

What Mick Wallace did was wrong and he should resign his Dáil seat. I don't think that anyone disagrees with this. (Apart from Mick Wallace himself)

But there is a huge difference between what Mick Wallace did and what the garlic guy did. The garlic guy could pay his tax but chose not to. He falsified the accounts and diverted the money to his own use. By doing what he did, the Revenue got less than they would otherwise have got.

Mick Wallace was in a company which could not pay its tax. It was insolvent. The correct thing for Mick Wallace to do at that stage was to call a creditors' meeting and to wind up the company.

Instead, he did what many business owners would do in the situation, he tried to trade his way out of it. Maybe he expected to be able to sell more apartments or buildings. It was wrong but it is very understandable.

If he had made a proper VAT return, he would be just declaring a liability and the company simply couldn't pay it. The Revenue has probably not lost out. The Revenue lost out in the garlic man case.

This is based on the public reports of the case. If it turns out that Mick Wallace evaded paying the Revenue and used the funds for his own benefit, then my views would change ...again.

Brendan
 
I would be interested to see if MJ Wallace Ltd paid Mick Wallace, any of his family members or friends over the 2 year period in which he was underdeclaring VAT.

The only honest thing for him to do now is resign his Dail seat in anticipation of bankruptcy
 
Mick Wallace was in a company which could not pay its tax. It was insolvent. The correct thing for Mick Wallace to do at that stage was to call a creditors' meeting and to wind up the company.
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So why didn't he?

He is not just a business owner.

He has crossed the rubicon. He is now a public representative.

Higher standards are expected and he does not reach these.

Marion
 
Hi Marion

He should have wound up the company. People try to keep their businesses afloat hoping that something will pick up. It's wrong, but that's what they do.

He wasn't a public representative at the time of the false Vat declaration.

But he is now and so he should resign from the Dáil.

Brendan
 
Trying to keep your business afloat is one thing. Putting in fake tax returns is another. If he thought it was purely a cash flow problem or temporary issue, he could have to revenue and come to an arrangement. He didn't do that. He filed a fake tax return and only went to revenue when his limited company was insolvent. It's no different to ordinary people not declaring income to revenue because they are short of cash and don't fancy paying tax. It happens but it is illegal.
 
Hi Sunny

Over the years, I have tried to advise some friends of mine who had businesses which were insolvent. It is very difficult for them to admit failure and to accept that a business which they have worked at for maybe 20 years has failed. It's a bit like a dying man - they struggle to hang onto life. "Where there is life, there is hope".

For me, it was fairly easy. The businesses is insolvent and the market is not going to recover any time soon. Stop trading. You could be accused of trading fraudulently. But they carry on trading until the bank appoints a receiver or a creditor seeks a winding up order.

If I had been advising Mick Wallace, I would have told him that his business was insolvent. It is a terrible pity that a business he has invested so much of his person in over x years is dead. It is a pity that his employees are going to lose their jobs. It is a pity that he will be facing a creditors' meeting. But that is business and he should face up to it. He would probably argue "This stupid country is crippling me - with the big VAT bills, tax bills, and onerous legislation. It's a fine company and if we can just keep the show on the road until the housing market turns, then I will be able to pay all my bills". I would have strongly advised him to close it down in an honourable fashion but desperate situations call for desperate measures.


I would have advised Mick Wallace that the key objective now was to make sure that the collapse of the company would not bring him down personally. However, if the collapse of the company would mean that Mick Wallace would be personally bankrupted due to personal guarantees, his incentive for trying to keep the company alive would be even stronger.

I would stress again, what he did was wrong and he should resign from the Dáil. But what he did was understandable.
 
John DeLorean tried to broker a drug sale to save his business. That was also understandable but also illegal.
Mick Wallace is a member of our national legislature. He should work to, and be judged by, higher standards than the rest of us. For me “understandable” doesn’t come into it.
 
Brendan, I have sympathy for anyone whose business fails. I even have sympathy for Mick Wallace. However, there are thousands of struggling small businesses out there that don't file fake tax returns. I don't see why a business should be at a competitive disadvantage to a competitor just because they ensure they are tax compliant.

I fully accept that businesses fail. I fully accept that owners often struggle to accept this and will continue to look for ways to continue trading when they probably shouldn't. What I don't accept is breaking the law is ever acceptable. On other threads, there are people calling for prosecutions for people who didn't register for the household charge. Mick Wallace is no different. He knowingly broke the tax law of this Country.

And going by this story, it looks like paying his tax liability wasn't top of his agenda.
 
And its claimed in one paper he doubled the salaries of himself
ans his son when he was going out of business??Hes also off to
Poznan.What a bunch of crooks...
 
Purple said:
John DeLorean tried to broker a drug sale to save his business.
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Now that you mention it, I actually know of someone else who did this as well. I had no sympathy for him at all. He was caught on his first trip and served time for it. It was not in Ireland by the way.

I was amazed at the time that his friends had sympathy for him. My view was that he was ruining lives by acting as a drugs mule.
 
this still applies unfortunately - banana republic - boomtown rats

The purple and the pinstripe
Mutely shake their heads
A silense shrieking volumes
A violence worse than they condemn
Stab you in the back yeah
Laughing in your face
Glad to see the place again
It's a pity nothing's changed
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Now that you mention it, I actually know of someone else who did this as well. I had no sympathy for him at all. He was caught on his first trip and served time for it. It was not in Ireland by the way.

I was amazed at the time that his friends had sympathy for him. My view was that he was ruining lives by acting as a drugs mule.
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You know some interesting people!
 
oldnick said:
Did we behave like this because we're idiots, cowards or because we're not Irish ?
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Because you're not Irish; you see Irish people are corrupt, drink too much, hate the english, don't like working mondays, are good for a laugh, and they are the best fans in the world, and are prone to lazy stereotype.
 
Supposing Deputy Wallace resigns on principle (don't laugh ;) !) and stands in the bye-election and is re-elected ?

Would Fintan O'Toole explode :D ?
 
Note 8: - WIP €34m - who in God's name valued this in Apr-2009. If the company became insolvent soon afterwards, this must have been massively overstated, at least double the true value anyway.

Note 10: - Directors' loan only €11K so he certainly wasn't plowing his own money in to save the company. Just mine!

Note 10: - VAT liability just €76K so no €1.4m provision here anyway

Note 16: - Directors' remuneration (only 2 directors) of €289K in y/e 31-Aug-2008, up from €148K the previous 12 months.
 
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