We didn't realise that once company ceased trading that we'd personally be hounded.

[dymo]

We owe money to the revune we met them when we found out we are paying them a set amount every month of what we can afford.They told us in april to get the money that they did not care how.But we can't the banks are not leanding so what can we do.have to say we found then grand once we spoke to them.We are not refusing to pay I have told them if we could give them the money we would but with the banks not leanding we are caught in a no win suition and there is nothing i can do.I had to show them a letter that we had applyed for a mortage but they would not give it to us.


I would try and speak to them again and get you solicitor to do it for you they are always going to try and scare you into getting the money for them.You are not the olny people that are in this trouble there is many more out there in the same boat.

 

[44brendan]

This approach and associated tactics of Revenue Sheriff are difficult to believe. I acknowledge OP description of experience but there is no legal basis for Revenue having an ability to pursue directors personally for debts due by the company. Given that scenario virtually all developers would have had white vans pulling up outside their houses and emptying them of their contents. Are their any Accountant contributors who can throw some light on this issue??

 

[mandelbrot]

i'm confused now...our accountant said we wouldn't be held responsible for the company debts but revenue say otherwise. i'm going to get legal advice on this matter as the revenue sherrif seem to have ultimate power here.

Well ye may at some point be held personally liable, but only on foot of an order to that effect by a (high court - I think) judge.

The whole point of a Ltd company is that it is a separate legal entity from it's shareholders, so it sounds like the bailiffs are way off the mark here; all they would be entitled to seize are company assets, not personal ones.

You need to get legal assistance / advice asap.

As an aside, is it possible that Revenue have assessed you and your husband (under S997A TCA 97), for the income tax deducted but not paid over by the company on your salaries - that would be the only other way that ye could be pursued personally in this situation.

 

[JoeRoberts]

is the outstanding vrt related to the renault scenic you are currently using ?
Did you by any chance transfer the car out of the company to yourselves ?

 

[whiteoaks100]

no its our own..nothing to do with company at all...

 

[whiteoaks100]

Well ye may at some point be held personally liable, but only on foot of an order to that effect by a (high court - I think) judge.

The whole point of a Ltd company is that it is a separate legal entity from it's shareholders, so it sounds like the bailiffs are way off the mark here; all they would be entitled to seize are company assets, not personal ones.

You need to get legal assistance / advice asap.

As an aside, is it possible that Revenue have assessed you and your husband (under S997A TCA 97), for the income tax deducted but not paid over by the company on your salaries - that would be the only other way that ye could be pursued personally in this situation.

then we are personally liable as its tax due on our salaries as employees. thanks for the insight.
we contacted revenue sherrif yesterday to figure out where to go from here and to sort out an installment plan but he said we had to deal with the bailiff from now on (ie the guys he sent out)...which in itself is confusing as the sherrif is the bailiff i thought . anyway my husband rang them and must admit the guy he spoke to was very curteous. but he said he'd have to speak with the sherrif about a payment plan...huh??..we are to get back to him in a few days with a figure we can afford and see what they say.as i said earlier the general rule on installment plans (from what the rule books say) is two years max but in todays economy thats totally unrealistic .
we contacted mabs 2 weeks ago but they say theres a backlog and we have to wait for a callback. i'm hoping with their help ..the sherrif will agree to a realistic figure within our means.mabs should be able to help seeing as its a personal debt i hope ..

 

[Bronte]

To summarise the rules.

Revenue sheriff can send out bailiffs to seize goods, but if it's business taxes he cannot take personal items only business assets but if the taxes owed are 'personal' taxes such as the case here (employee paye/prsi) they can take personal goods.

The only asset the bailiff can take in this case is the Renault Scenic. The question then is will they ? Would the fact that it's the only family vehicle count for anything? It is at least worth 10K so that is a sizable sum. Presumable if it was a banger worth 1K they wouldn't bother.

Whiteoaks what is the year of purchase of the car? Where are you getting a value of 10K from. They are not going to take the laptop and Tv's etc.

At least it is revenue bailiff's they are not going to do anything untoward. They will keep to the letter of the law and their job is to enforce the order they have. Part of this is them 'scaring' you into paying something and it worked. Being realistic you''ll have to come up with a payment plan. But if you have no income then your realistic amount will probably be around the 5 Euro mark. They are not going to be impressed with that. But if you don't have income you cannot pay and they will have to be realistic. Do not borrow for this, unless you can afford the borrowings.

How are you paying the credit union loan? And your solicitor? Do you think it might be a good idea for you to do the money makeover thread. It will help you to get a clearer idea of your finances maybe, and another viewpoint. I think you also need to speak to Mabs, have you explainted to Mabs how urgent it is and how worried you are?

 

[Bronte]

This approach and associated tactics of Revenue Sheriff are difficult to believe. I acknowledge OP description of experience. Given that scenario virtually all developers would have had white vans pulling up outside their houses and emptying them of their contents.

By the time revenue eventually get court orders and send out bailiff's all the Picasso's and luxury cars have been well gotton rid of. Developers will have been well advised by their solicitors and accountants on that.

It's not a nice experience for the OP, I can see why it would be frightening but it is not the fault of the revenue or the sheriff or the bailiff's that they have to chase the money. They are doing it for all compliant tax payers. I'm not saying OP is not complaint and can well see how the business has gone bust. These are tough times.

 

[Nige]

Even if some of the company's outstanding taxes relate to PAYE/PRSI I cannot see how the sherriff/bailiff can take the couple's family car. The taxes owed are owed by the company and it appears the company has no assets.

The facility under section 997A to recoup the unpaid taxes on the directors' own salary is done by not allowing a credit for the PAYE which should have been paid over. But, to do this, the Revenue must raise and assessment showing income tax due by the couple and only if this is not paid (and not appealed) can they then send the sherrif after them personally.

 

[mcaul]

Here's some advice that will get the revenue off your back and even get you money back.

GET AN ACCOUNTANT - Particulary one that is good at taxes.

Ditch the solicitor - they may be good at legal stuff, but I've yet to find a solicitor good at accounts / taxation. - Revenue don;t talk solicitor language, but revenue and accountants both speak from same page.

Have accountant run the rule over both your personal earnings and company books over the past 4 years. See if / where you have put money into the company to stay afloat. If the company still owes you that money, re-do your taxes to show income from the company was partly loans to the company being paid off.

Check for any and every possible personal allowance - clothing allowances, travelling allowances, rent allowances, contribution to household bills if operated for home etc etc.

You may very well have revenue paying YOU money. - If you want a good tax saving accountant pm me and I'll give you details of my guy.

And thankfully these days, good accountants don't cost too much and are affordable for even the worst cases.

 

[mandelbrot]

Have accountant run the rule over both your personal earnings and company books over the past 4 years. See if / where you have put money into the company to stay afloat. If the company still owes you that money, re-do your taxes to show income from the company was partly loans to the company being paid off.

WOW!

Have you actually seen this done in practice, and subsequently allowed when audited by Revenue?? - because an audit is exactly what tends to happen when Revenue say you owe them money, and you then turn around and attempt to change history and say, actually ye owe me money!

I have actually heard of an attempt at this, that was refused by Revenue, and subsequently refused again on appeal to the Appeal Commissioner. AFAIK Revenue are now being very watchful for attempts at this, as more and more companies / directors are attempting it as a means of retrospective tax planning.

The fact is that remuneration was paid, and PAYE / PRSI accrued accordingly. I assume that the directors also filed personal income tax returns for each year, which were based on their P60 figures. So both the company, and the directors as separate legal persons, have represented that their remuneration was X amount. These are matters of fact.

The company should also have been filing accounts to the CRO each year, which the directors will have signed, confirming that the director's remuneration was X amount (which would agree with the company's PAYE/PRSI records and the directors' personal tax returns).

Basically in the absence of a fraud or a fundamental error, there is no basis to make this kind of amendment. There clearly is neither in this scenario; people consciously choose to draw money out of a company by way of taxed remuneration, and just because subsequently it becomes apparent that there was a more tax efficient option available to them, it doesn't and cannot change the facts that prevailed at the time the payments were made. If it was a salary when paid, then it will always be a salary.

It's like picking a dish from a menu at a restaurant, eating it, and then when presented with the bill, deciding you would like them to agree that you didn't actually have the lobster, it was actually the soup and bread...

I strongly recommend giving this approach a very wide berth...

 

[whiteoaks100]

hello once more
thankyou everyone that offered advice on our predicament..much appreciated and supportive.
just to let you know how it all panned out...
the bailiffs rang my husband this morning enquiring of our intention to pay an installment plan.they were demanding a period of no longer then the 9th Aug 2012 12 midnight to have the balance of 5290 repayed.workingout the calculations that would have been roughly 160 a week which was totally unrealistic. the bailiff stated that the sherrif would not give any longer then this time span...my husband arguing the case that it was totally impossible to pay that amount only got the reply that it all had to paid by 12 aug or they would begin repossession order.. he "helpfully" stated we could pay less weekly but give lump sum installments when money available. he was giving us til 11 Nov to give an answer.
following the phone call we got on to collector general again and eventually was put through to another lady who was dealing with our case re rct tax due ie the other revenue bill for 4100. she was able to pull out our file showing all income details ,sw payments etc. my husband relayed the previous phone call he'd had with bailiffs and pleaded to her that if he was forced to make these payments to sherrif weekly then he'd have no chance of attempting to pay the rct amount of 4100.
long and short of the story is that she managed to contact the revenue sherrif and call him off..so THANKGOD NO bailiff on our backs now. their fees and sherrifs fees came out of the 1700 we paid and the balance of a mere 600 came off our revenue bill(which now has both the income tax and rct combined into one). the lady was extremely helpful and said she was deferring our payments until our circumstances improved but that if we could make some small payment every so often just to show we were attempting to repay then it would suffice.
we are still awaiting a meeting with mabs to work out a budget for repayment and once in place we will diligently pay whatever amount is deemed suitable and affordable .
one huge sigh of relief from us though.all i can say though is the rules and regulations regarding sherrifs and the bailiffs enforced by them ought to be re outlined and re structured in todays society...alot of cases are cases where the individual simply can't pay as opposed to refusing to pay and being literally bullied by "legalized"thugs does not help any situation except of course the pockets of those enforcing it.
my husband is on antidepressants after the stress of it all and my own health has declined through all the worry.but thankfully we have a reprieve and prayers were answered .thank youagain for all the well informed advice .

 

[44brendan]

Good to hear that a pragmatic approach was agreed by the Revenue. I'm assuming that you were very lucky in being able to contact someone who was both helpful and realistic. I acknowledge the exteme stress this situation has put you both under and wish you all the best for the future.

 

[whiteoaks100]

we are extremely grateful to that lady and yes we were very lucky to have found her on other side of phone (",)

 

[mcaul]

WOW!

Have you actually seen this done in practice, and subsequently allowed when audited by Revenue?? - because an audit is exactly what tends to happen when Revenue say you owe them money, and you then turn around and attempt to change history and say, actually ye owe me money!

...

yes and it was audited and accepted, but in my case the revenue had not asked for anything first and company accounts were behind by 2 years (previous accountant had joined some religious sect and caused unbelievable problems which thankfully revenue knew about). I was also quite lucky to get one of the better (nicer) audit people and the accounts were presented in top notch order so her job was quite easy. - wife got the refund based on the amount of tax she paid - so in truth I didn't see a brass cent!

edit - this arrangement cannot be done restropectively, (as said above), but it should be noted for anyone who has invested money in their own business. Draw up a proper repayment plan for any loans you have made to the business and gradually draw the loans down in the same way you would be paying abck a loan to a financial institution.