Revenue Audit shock -help

You are in a state of shock, but read the comments here. You can ignore them if you like.

The big issue is that you appear to have been defrauded. That means that your bookkeeper took your money for themselves. That is the priority.

A forensic accountant is a specialist and very expensive. You are very unlikely to need one. An ordinary competent qualified accountant will investigate this for you, quantify your losses and deal with Revenue.

You do not need to consult a solicitor.

Don't panic. These things happen. Take it step by step.
 
Thank you so much everybody for your comments, sudden I am not alone and have some great advice from this forum.

A regular Accountant firstly seems to be the general consensus. Thanks to all for making me see a common sense approach with what seems to be a pretty crude fraud case. Also TomEdison mentioned " thought that losses due to theft are a deductible expense, and if the theft can be documented revised returns, treating the amounts stolen as deductible, should be acceptable", which has given me some hope, tks.

I hope I am not breaking the forum rules but with reference to my case/ all said above: if it is allowable for any of this forums members to private message me a recommended accountant ?
FYI I work in Tallaght and Wicklow, it would be ideal if someone know of an accountant in those areas or surrounds.
 
Just one point - the timing is bad.

This is the time of year for tax returns so many accountants will not take on new clients. Or they might take on the job, but not progress it until after the Revenue deadline of mid November.

Brendan
 
So when you had tax payments to make in Oct each year, the Book Keeper requested a sum from you to pay your tax.
You transferred money directly to the BookKeeper for that individual to to pay to Revenue, rather than pay it yourselves/write a cheque to Revenue?

Then presumably the Book Keeper manipulated the figures to report less income to the Revenue, and thus less tax was owing?
If you have records of the amount the Book Keeper requested from you each year, it should be pretty easy to show that that individual did not submit the same amount to Revenue.
 
Don't know where you got that from

The original poster never gave much detail as to what happened really other than "we were embezzled"
 
kenneth12 said:
So when you had tax payments to make in Oct each year, the Book Keeper requested a sum from you to pay your tax.
You transferred money directly to the BookKeeper for that individual to to pay to Revenue, rather than pay it yourselves/write a cheque to Revenue?

Then presumably the Book Keeper manipulated the figures to report less income to the Revenue, and thus less tax was owing?
If you have records of the amount the Book Keeper requested from you each year, it should be pretty easy to show that that individual did not submit the same amount to Revenue
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Where did you get this from ?
 
There is no legal requirement to employ an accountant to file returns although it is a good idea.
Some questions which are not meant to be bad.
Was your "Agent" a qualified accountant? Or part of any professional body? You may have some recourse to these bodies for the negligence of your "Agent" if they are a current member of or where when they provided the service to you.
Did you pay the agent funds for your tax liability or just for their service.?
If they defrauded you then you sue them for same if they "pocketed the funds"
If you underpaid your tax liability then you are liable for same as ignorance is not a defence? If they did not pay the funds and you still have the funds then you are liable for same.
 
jpd said:
Don't know where you got that from

The original poster never gave much detail as to what happened really other than "we were embezzled"
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The OP replied in the affirmative to my previous post, where I described the anecdotal scenario of a tax advisor showing a set of figures to their client, indicating X amount being due, but filing a return to Revenue saying Y is due (where Y is less than X), and by whatever means (necessarily involving the tax advisor handling or having access to the client's money at some point in the process) the advisor trousers the difference.

Here's a couple of examples of the kind of craic that can go on:

m.independent.ie

Suspended six-year jail term for accountant

A 56-YEAR-OLD accountant from Carlow town pleaded guilty last week in the local Circuit Court to nine sample charges in relation to forgery and theft.
m.independent.ie m.independent.ie

https://www.leinsterleader.ie/news/news/301147/two-years-for-accountant.html
 
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mathepac said:
Reporting to Guards is a case of cart before horse
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Like others posting here, I've got no great experience in this. But it's safe to say the Gardai aren't going to send around a SWAT team to raid this guy's office. There has been an allegation by Revenue that potential criminal activity has taken place, so reporting to make the Gardai aware is 100% appropriate. Then speak with a solicitor who will advise on the next steps like employing various professionals to support this investigation.

In the event that the OP is held responsible for this, he will need to be able to say [e.g. in court] that as soon as he was made aware of a potential crime, he informed the relevant authorities.

Other suggestions that he exhaust all other options to investigate himself through hiring other professionals, before speaking with the Gardai, are [in my opinion] incorrect.
 
johncb said:
There has been an allegation by Revenue that potential criminal activity has taken place,
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I'd be very surprised if this was the case.

Revenue have done (or are doing) an audit and have brought certain discrepancies to the OP's attention. It's not Revenue's job to make allegations like that, and any officer who might do so would be getting their wings clipped very quickly by management.
 
However it happened your book keeper was acting as an agent, the returns were your responsibility. Your contract (engagement letter) with them will make that clear.

I’m guessing your bookkeeper was an accountant in practice. Were they qualified and a member of a professional body? You can complain to them in due course but that wont sort out your revenue situation.

Find a reputable local firm of accountants and ask for an appointment to talk to an accountant with revenue audit experience. You may have to wait a while, busy season. But ask them what you need to bring to a meeting and get cracking on collating that while you wait.

This accountant can help you work out what the bookkeeper did and then you can confide whether you can sue them for negligence or fraud.
 
johncb said:
But it's safe to say the Gardai aren't going to send around a SWAT team to raid this guy's office.
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Well is this established as a criminal or civil offence? Not sure we have any details to determine either.

Anyway, as per @Brendan Burgess approach you need to employ a reputable accountant to figure out what happened here. b) Get in touch with Revenue and inform them that you are concerned the returns sent are fradulent and seeking advice on same. No experience in this area but in general Revenue are so much better to work with than 20 years ago. c) Based off the Accountant audit findings, share with revenue and your solicitor to instigate proceedings against your "book keeper" if needed.

INAL and others will have better advice no doubt.
 
I had a similar situation about 12 years ago but not embezzlement - a previous accountant got an intern to manage my accounts and they literally hadn't a clue. Accountant themselves had personal issues and took the eye off the ball. Then the audit came and even the revenue couldn't understand some of the entries.

Immediately moved to a new accountant. He got time from revenue to redo two years of books. Net position wasn't too bad as the errors were both in favour and against me and the deficit was abut 40k. They added interest but did not add a penalty and it was paid over 18 months.

What I learnt was that honesty is without doubt the best policy and that revenue are easy to work with when they know you did not purposely try to defraud them. I also learnt to keep better informed myself of income and expenditure and have a rough idea of liabilities before the accountant provides the figures.

I'd also guess that revenue keep you on a watch list as we had a further audit in 2019 and a customs audit in 2022 and thankfully both of them got the all clear.

So for OP - New accountant. They'll get time from revenue. If there is an amount due and revenue see that you did not gain from the errors, they will give you time and whilst they will add interest, they may hold off any penalty.

If the current bookkeeper has taken funds without your knowledge, give them the opportunity to pay it back before taking any other action.
 
Wandering_Dazed said:
Well is this established as a criminal or civil offence?
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If something is a civil matter, the Gardai will say so based on the (likely more thorough) set of facts that the OP should provide them. But the idea that the onus is on someone to go to great lengths to investigate such a matter themselves by employing professionals is, in my [non-lawyer] opinion, wrong.
 
Whether it is criminal or civil isn’t going to sort out the revenue matter.
It might be incompetence so no case, civil or criminal but the correct tax etc needs to be established and a payment plan agreed with revenue.
And for that a professional accountant is needed IMO.

A by-product of this work may be the evidence of wrongdoing if it exists
 
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johncb said:
the idea that the onus is on someone to go to great lengths to investigate such a matter themselves by employing professionals is, in my [non-lawyer] opinion, wrong.
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If I was €60k out of pocket, my first priority would be to get it back. And I would go to great lengths to do so.

As has been said time and again, the first priority is to establish what has been lost and to see if it can be recovered.

Tax and criminal investigations follow on from that.
 
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