Sixteen months for truck driver who failed to pay tax
By Jessica Magee
A self-employed truck driver has been jailed for 16 months after he failed to pay tax and VAT returns for six years, leaving the State at a loss of over €375,000.
Alan Keogh (42) with an address at The Courtyard, St Maelruan’s Park, Old Bawn, Tallaght, was charged with a total of 88 counts of failure to deliver VAT and income tax returns.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court
He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 11 sample counts covering dates between January 2010 to October 2016. He has no previous convictions.
Passing sentence on Tuesday, Judge Martin Nolan said he accepted the submission that had Keogh complied fully with the tax code, he would have been entitled to a lot of tax relief.
Judge Nolan said the appropriate sentence in the case was a term of imprisonment of 16 months.
At an earlier hearing, the court heard that Keogh had initially been tax compliant as a self-employed truck driver. He got work from a parcel delivery company called GLS and then subcontracted this to a number of other drivers whom he paid for their services.
Mr David Feehily, an officer from the Revenue Commissioners, told Gráinne O’Neill BL, prosecuting, that Keogh had registered to pay VAT from July 2004.
He continued to file his returns, with interest, until October 2008. Then in May 2009, Keogh cancelled his VAT registration.
The court heard Keogh wrote on the cancellation form that his business was no longer viable and that his running costs were too high. Under the heading “current occupation”, Keogh wrote that he was going to apply for unemployment benefit and seek a PAYE job.
However, Mr Feehily said subsequent investigations showed that Keogh had not ceased trading and that payments from GLS continued to be lodged into an AIB bank account in his name.
Revenue officials deemed Keogh liable for the total sum of €375,732 and sought to interview him, but he cancelled the first three attempts before finally attending a meeting in June 2017, accompanied by a solicitor.
Keogh answered all questions but failed to provide any explanations, saying the signature on his deregistration form was that of his ex-partner and that he himself was “computer illiterate”.
Mr Feehily said Keogh had been subject to a Revenue audit in 2009 and had been advised that he wasn’t maintaining proper bookkeeping of his accounts.
Mr Feehily agreed with Seóirse Ó Dúnlaing BL, defending, that Keogh had “some cock-and-bull story” instead of a reasonable explanation as to why he hadn’t filed his returns.
Mr Ó Dúnlaing pointed out that Keogh had a number of subcontractors and that money went out of his account to these drivers. Counsel said that in 2010, GLS paid over €118,000 to Keogh, who in turn paid about €60,000 to various drivers.
Counsel said that because Keogh never declared his payments to subcontractors, or submitted his own expenses, that his actual debt to Revenue needed to be revised to take these into account.
The court heard that Keogh’s mother died in 2010 and that the following year, he went through a difficult relationship break-up. Keogh told officers that he had a problem with alcohol and had joined AA.
Mr Ó Dúnlaing said that as VAT and income tax returns were mandatory, the matter was always going to come to court.
“His head was so far in the sand, that he finds himself in this position today,” he said, adding that his client was “not a man of enormous cognitive functioning.”
Testimonials were presented from Keogh’s father, and from his current employer who described him as a hard worker.
