TAX ADVISER:TAX ADVISER Noel Corcoran has said he was contacted by former taoiseach Bertie Ahern in 2000 for tax advice about loans he received in the early 1990s.
Mr Corcoran told the Mahon tribunal Mr Ahern also told him about an £8,000 gift he received from a number of individuals in Manchester.
He said the phone call happened more than four years before the tribunal contacted Mr Ahern in relation to the sums.
Mr Corcoran said he knew Mr Ahern for 20 years, from when Mr Ahern was minister for finance.
"We always got on well - I suppose, over time, we trusted each other's opinions," he said.
He said Mr Ahern was not a client and he gave him the advice informally and did not correspond with him.
Mr Ahern told Mr Corcoran that as well as the Manchester money he had been given 12 loans ranging from £2,500 to £5,000. These equated to the two "dig-outs" being examined by the tribunal: one of £22,500, given in December 1993, and the other of £38,000, given in October 1994.
Mr Corcoran advised Mr Ahern that he had no tax liability, either on the loans or on the Manchester gift. He told counsel for the tribunal, Des O'Neill SC, that he gave his advice on the basis of the information provided to him by Mr Ahern.
"Mr Ahern thanked me for my advice and said he was relieved to get a clear picture of the position," Mr Corcoran said.
Asked by Judge Gerald Keys if he had discussed the matter with Mr Ahern since he gave his advice, Mr Corcoran said Mr Ahern had referred to it on one occasion,saying: "That tax advice you gave me some years ago, I take it it still stands?"
The tribunal also heard that the declaration of trust setting up St Luke's as being held in trust for Fianna Fáil was retrospectively filed four years after the house was purchased.
Mr O'Neill said it was practice that a declaration of trust for a property would be filed and stamped on the same day as the indenture of lease for the property, which outlined its ownership. Yet the indenture was dated May 18th, 1988, and was stamped as having been received on July 8th, 1988, while the declaration was dated May 18th, 1988, but was stamped as having been received 4½ years after the conveyance was carried out.
Sheena Beale, solicitor to the trustees of St Luke's in 1999 when they applied for a mortgage on the property, agreed that it was normal practice to file both documents together.
