THE REVENUE HAS published details of 78 tax settlements it reached with tax defaulters in the first three months of 2011 – in deals which brought in over €15.5m.

The 78 settlements are made up of just under €7m in unpaid taxes, with a further €8.58m in penalties and interest for those defaulters.

The largest such settlement was reached with discount shopkeeper Sean Joyce, of Breafey, Castlebar, Co Mayo, who reached a total settlement of €1.487m – including almost €1m in interest and penalties.

The Revenue documents showed Joyce had under-declared in his income tax and VAT filings, and also held a bogus non-resident account.

Robert Fagan of Park Avenue in Sandyford, whose family owns the Ailesbury and Ashbury private nursing homes in South Dublin, paid €925,000 – including €487,502 in interest – for underdeclaring in income tax.

Eight cases in total had a settlement value of over €500,000. In total, investigation into bogus non-resident accounts yielded €3.4m of the total settlements.

The total yield from Revenue’s audit and investigation programmes settled in the first quarter of 2011.

Details of the settlements do not include those where the settlement is worth less than a certain threshold, or where the taxpayer voluntarily supplies complete information of their previous unpaid tax liabilities.

The settlements are published in the latest issue of the State gazette, the Iris Oifigiúil.