Solicitors suspended in €32m tax evasion probe

flangeman

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0215/solicitors.html
Solicitors suspended in €32m tax evasion probe
Friday, 15 February 2008 20:31
Two solicitors from a well-known Dublin law firm have been suspended from practising for one year by the High Court.

The solicitors, whose main clients were health boards, were suspended because of multiple and serious regulation breaches, including tax evasion.

Colm Carroll and Henry Colley, who practised under the name of Roger Greene & Sons, hid tens of millions of euro, received as fees from their clients, in a secret bank account to facilitate tax evasion.

As well as being suspended for a year, they will each also be restricted for a further three years to practising only as assistant solicitors under supervision. They must also pay €50,000 each to the solicitors' compensation fund.

The Court was told €32m was lodged into a secret bank account at Ulster Bank on O'Connell Street over a period of three-and-a-half years. A hundred transactions were made on the account over that period but no records were kept. The court heard this was done to facilitate tax evasion.

The court was also told the men then deliberately deceived and frustrated a law society investigation into the practice.

However, the court heard that no money is missing and no money is owed to anyone as a result of the men's actions.

The two solicitors have also made settlements with the revenue commissioners.

Lawyers for the Law Society had asked the High Court to strike off the two solicitors, but Mr Justice Liam McKechnie ruled that the year's suspension was sufficient to maintain public confidence and the good name of the profession.

The judge said the main factor influencing his decision was the fact that no money had been found to be owed.

Ok, over here in Blighty, what's the story:
a) What do they mean nothing is missing, it was €35m !!! FFS
b) What hasn't the revenue f*cked them up royally
c) Only struck off for 2 years!!! Isn't that a bit lame and does it really ruled that the year's suspension was sufficient to maintain public confidence and the good name of the profession

galwayrush

flangeman wrote: »

Ok, over here in Blighty, what's the story:
a) What do they mean nothing is missing, it was €35m !!! FFS
b) What hasn't the revenue f*cked them up royally
c) Only struck off for 2 years!!! Isn't that a bit lame and does it really ruled that the year's suspension was sufficient to maintain public confidence and the good name of the profession

if you think that's bad, wait until you read about our Taoiseach Bertie.:rolleyes:

cock robin

Solicitors and Judges in this country are a law unto themselves.

Victor

flangeman wrote: »

a) What do they mean nothing is missing, it was €35m !!! FFS

The money was their / their employers - and it was only €32m.

galwayrush

Victor wrote: »

The money was their / their employers - and it was only €32m.

Small money, sure the Goverment couldn't get a basic computer to work for small change like that/:rolleyes:

legoman

They had the balls to ask the court for costs because the solicitors were not struck off just suspended. The Judge told said "not a chance".

Unreal

Maximilian

OP, they weren't struck off because it was their own money & no client was out of pocket. They were trying to evade tax. Quite a monster bucket load of it, from the looks of it.

SimpleSam06

Do we even need solicitors any more? I mean what do they do - they look up laws in a book and use them in the given case to suit their own ends. How is that any different from say a search engine? I've spoken to solicitors who have told me their clients often know the law anmd legal practise better than they do, especially in family law situations.

Why couldn't we have a legal library tool that gives you all the information you need from the laws, and people could defend themselves, I mean its not like its that hard. The only place there might be a problem would be in the legal terms used, but if a law isn't written in understandable English it shouldn't be on the books anyway.

seamus

flangeman wrote: »

a) What do they mean nothing is missing, it was €35m !!! FFS

No money was missing. It's a pretty standard scam that plenty of professions have done/still do. You basically pretend that you're earning less than you really are so you pay less tax to revenue.
A firm doing a high turnover of cases could easily rack up €32m over, say ten years.

b) What hasn't the revenue f*cked them up royally

Revenue has, they've settled with them. There's no money in locking people up, so Revenue will *always* try to settle with evaders before bringing criminal proceedings. In this case they would have to pay the unpaid tax amount + interest.

c) Only struck off for 2 years!!! Isn't that a bit lame and does it really ruled that the year's suspension was sufficient to maintain public confidence and the good name of the profession

Well, to be fair they didn't seem to have abused their positions as solicitors to get this done. So while it makes sense to suspend them because they should be examples of the law, not breakers of it, there's no reason to strike them off.

Do we even need solicitors any more? I mean what do they do - they look up laws in a book and use them in the given case to suit their own ends. How is that any different from say a search engine?

Well, there are a number of things in it. First off and most importantly, there are a few things you cannot do without a solicitor's signature. Stuff like a property purchase you could probably do without your solicitor, but it would cost you far more in terms of time and money than just paying the solicitor to do it for you.

Secondly, "doing away" with solicitors instantly puts a certain amount of people at a disadvantage in terms of using the law. Person A, being an intelligent and wealthy person, may know exactly how to look up laws and use them for their own ends. Person B, being not wealthy and limited in education, has access to the resources but hasn't got a clue how to use them.
Person A will always beat person B in the courtroom, even when person B is 100% in the right.
This is exactly the reason why we appoint free solicitors to those who can't afford them.