Ansbacher Tax Evaders Likely To Avoid Jail

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

09 July 2002

Ireland's new Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell has moved quickly to dismiss suggestions that the release of the Ansbacher report on Saturday will lead to a spate of quick arrests.

The Ansbacher (Cayman) Bank was used by many of the country's great and good to evade Irish taxes for more than 20 years, and was described by the report's authors on Saturday as 'little more than a charade, a sham and a legal fiction'. The 10,000 page report revealed that the bank was never legally registered in Ireland during the years that it was used by several from within the country's political and business elite to evade taxes.

Commenting on the findings of the three-year investigation, which named 190 individuals as clients of the bank's Dublin office, Tanaiste Mary Harney observed that:

'The report concludes unambiguously that a variety of individuals and corporations knowingly promoted widespread tax evasion.' She went on to add that its publication: 'demonstrates that we in Ireland now have the capacity and the courage to lift the veil of secrecy and the determination to enforce the law.'

However, according to a report in the UK's Sunday Observer, Mr McDowell stated at the weekend that the mere fact of doing business with Ansbacher (Cayman) was not necessarily evidence of wrongdoing.

He added that that evidence given to the High Court Inspector may not be admissible in a criminal trial, and warned that the chances of being able to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in many of the cases were small.

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