Accountancy body expels member guilty of tax fraud

One of the State's leading accounting bodies has expelled a member who paid almost €120,000 in fines and penalties after being convicted of tax fraud.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI) announced yesterday that a disciplinary tribunal had ordered that Mr Michael McKenna be "excluded from membership" of the organisation.

Mr McKenna pleaded guilty in Dublin District Court to 27 counts of tax evasion in June last year. Over a period of five years, from 1992 and 1996, he hid €76,000 of fee income from the tax authorities.

He had to pay the Revenue Commissioners €110,000 in taxes, interest and penalties, and was also fined €8,640 in connection with the same charges.

A statement from the ICAI said that as a result, Mr McKenna had to face disciplinary action under the institute's rules. He subsequently appeared before a three-man tribunal on September 28th, 2004. The tribunal published its finding yesterday.

Mr McKenna's expulsion means that he will not be able to audit company accounts, a key activity for many chartered accountants.

In order to do this work, accountants must be members of one of six self-regulating accountancy bodies authorised to act as auditors in this State. The ICAI is one of these groups.

Expulsion also means the he cannot practise as a "chartered accountant". However, he could in theory continue to work as an accountant.

Mr McKenna has the right to appeal the ruling, but the ICAI statement said that he had not done this. He could not be contacted for comment yesterday.

He practised as McKenna and Co from an address in Ontario Crescent in Rathmines, Dublin. His conviction was the result of a five-year investigation by Revenues officials that covered the years 1992 to 1996.

The bulk of the charges against him related to VAT, but he also pleaded guilty to a number of income-tax related offences. Mr McKenna avoided tax by using a system of duplicate and un-numbered invoices.

His VAT returns were based on a series of numbered invoice books, but the Revenue Commissioners identified a number of irregularities in the books. Some returns were not numbered while other numbers were used more than once.

The Revenue Commissioners began their investigation in 1997 and the case first made it into court in 2001.