A HIGH-PROFILE chartered accountant who allegedly used a client’s VAT cheques to pay his own tax bills, was remanded on bail at the Dublin District Court yesterday.
Colm Watters, senior partner at Becker Cresswell Watters Ltd of Dublin, is alleged to have defrauded the Revenue Commissioners of €70,000. The accountant and tax consultant, who lives in Mount Merrion, south Dublin, had 20 charges brought against him. He was charged with five counts of fraudulently converting cheques of €5,000 each and one count of attempting to fraudulently convert a cheque.
He was also charged with eight counts of incorrectly filing P35s, four counts of tax evasion through incorrectly submitting personal tax returns and one count of knowingly supplying the Revenue Commissioners with incorrect information. A final charge was for claiming a tax repayment he was not entitled to. The offences allegedly happened between December 2000 and February 2004.
Des Hickey, solicitor for the Revenue Commissioners and the Director of Public Prosecutions, told the court Mr Watters helped financially stricken companies to get their affairs in order. His work included calculating their tax and filing tax returns for them.
One of Mr Watters’s clients gave him six cheques totalling €30,000, Mr Hickey said. The cheques were intended to pay the client’s outstanding VAT bill. However, Mr Watters instead used them to settle his own tax liability with the Revenue. Five of the cheques were duly processed, but one of the cheques bounced, which led to a charge of attempted fraudulent conversion in that case.
In relation to the eight charges of incorrectly filing P35s, Mr Hickey said it was alleged that when making P35 returns on behalf of some of his clients’ companies, Mr Watters incorrectly listed himself as an employee of those companies. His clients’ companies then paid tax through the PAYE system on his behalf and this was offset against Mr Watters’s own tax liabilities. “But there was no reality to it,” Mr Hickey said.
The total loss of income to the Revenue Commissioners was €70,000, he said, and losses to the companies involved would be dealt with in the civil courts.
Judge Ann Watkin said it appeared that a significant part of the case was that Mr Watters attempted to take €30,000 from one of the businesses he was carrying out work for in circumstances where his client was already in difficulty. This made the charges more serious, she said. She said it had been alleged he also “led clients to believe they had to pay tax for him”.
Solicitor Dara Robinson, for Mr Watters, asked the judge if she would deal with the matter summarily in her jurisdiction. The judge said the matter was not a minor one. She said Mr Watters had been dealing with people who were already in trouble and she refused jurisdiction.
Mr Watters was remanded on €500 bail and will appear in the Circuit Criminal Court at a later date.
