Quintas Blog

For those in the Accountancy Profession and indeed those in Business Revenue Audits became part of our lives in the mid 1980’s.At the time as a young trainee I had but a slight exposure to same as this type of work was usually done by the qualified and senior staff. I do recall one prolonged and protracted Revenue Audit that was conducted on a client of a former employer of mine that had a rather unusual outcome. To protect the confidentiality of the parties involved I’ll refer to them as the Haulier, the  Accountant and the Taxman.

The Haulier had a very good business and a lot of his work was generated from the meat processing plants around the country. The Beef Tribunal had uncovered some rather sharp practice in the meat industry and by extension the haulage industry that was servicing the meat plants. Revenue had been instructed to go after the offending hauliers to collect unpaid taxes and put an end to their practices which unfortunately included our client.

This particular Revenue Audit lasted a considerable length of time and quite often the correspondence was extremely serious with meetings and discussion being very heated and ill tempered affairs. It’s fair to say the investigation took a serious toll on our client. As time went on positions became entrenched and as the Haulier battled for the very survival of his business, the Taxman was fighting hard for what he felt was rightly his in terms of unpaid tax, interest and penalties and was bringing the full extent of his considerable powers to bear.  As the negotiations were at their height but at the same time no agreement being reached something needed to give somewhere. A catalyst to breach the impasse and finalise matters was required and it came from a somewhat unwelcome and unusual source.

The Haulier suffered a massive heart attack, no doubt brought about at least in part by the stress he was under. Fortunately a doctor was in close proximity when he had the heart attack and while he was apparently “clinically dead” for a few minutes he was resuscitated by the doctor and survived.

My former employer the Accountant had become close on a personal level with the Haulier during the course of the Revenue Audit. He went to visit his client in the hospital in the days that followed. On hearing the story about being “dead” for a few minutes, the Accountant as a deeply religious man was intrigued and he inquisitively but naively asked his client did he remember anything and what was it like. The Haulier was a bit of a rogue and had a great sense of humour even in these darkest of times and he told his Accountant exactly how he remembered it.

“I remember feeling the sharp pain right across my chest and collapsing to the ground” he said. “I could see and hear all the commotion going on around me as I lay there but my eyes were closing and the noise was getting fainter” He went on “the next thing I remember was seeing this white light, I was been drawn towards it, my body was very light, levitating towards the light which was getting bigger and brighter as I got closer”. At this stage the Accountant was completely enthralled in the story. The Haulier continued “I could see the outline of the Pearly Gates and the tall imposing figure of St Peter standing guard at them, Peter motioned me closer to him and was just about to tell me to ask my question when I felt something tugging at my leg, holding me back as I was about to talk to St Peter. I turned around to see what it was and there he was, the Taxman holding on to me saying come back here you I’m not finished with you yet!”

The Haulier made a full recovery and eventually the Revenue Audit was brought to an amicable if expensive conclusion which was certainly assisted by the Hauliers health condition or as he liked to put it St Peters intervention.  The Haulier, Accountant and Taxman went their separate ways but I often wondered what he meant when he said “St Peter was just about to tell me to ask my question”. So all these years later I enquired when I met the Haulier by chance.

Well apparently, or according to him as he has first-hand experience, when you arrive at the Pearly Gates, St Peter affords you the opportunity to ask a final question. I can’t say I’m a religious person but I do have some faith so this got me to thinking if I did have the opportunity of asking one final question what would it be?

The doubtful will ask “Can I get in?” While the selfish will ask “Can I have another go?”

I put it to a friend of mine and he rather flippantly said his final question would be “What happened to Shergar?”  I’d like to think my final question would be more profound but I haven’t figured it out yet. What would your final question be?

Fachtna O’Mahony

Partner

Quintas

Tags: Revenue Audit, Revenue Settlement, Tax audit

This entry was posted on October 4, 2012 at 11:48 am and is filed under Accounting, Business Planning, SME. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.