A farmer, haulier and agricultural contractor has lost a \u20ac1.55m tax battle with Revenue Commissioners in a dispute over green diesel.<\/p>\n
This follows the Tax Appeals Commission (TAC) upholding an assessment served on the agri contractor and farmer by the Revenue Commissioners in 2018 concerning excise duty, income tax and VAT.<\/p>\n
The bulk of the assessment concerned a \u20ac1.29m excise duty bill for green diesel while, the income tax bill of \u20ac214,663 and VAT bill of \u20ac54,072 also related to the green diesel.<\/p>\n
The lower-taxed green diesel is used mainly for agricultural work and is strictly restricted to off-road purposes.<\/p>\n
The sharp rise in the price of green diesel, which has nearly doubled from \u20ac0.97 per litre in February to \u20ac1.80 in recent weeks, was one of the driving factors in protesters mounting blockades at major ports and oil depots in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway and locations across the motorway system.<\/p>\n
Alleged receipt<\/p>\n
In the case before the TAC, appeals commissioner Conor O\u2019Higgins said that the excise duty assessment arose from the appellant\u2019s alleged receipt of 3.44m litres of ultra-low sulphur marked gas oil (MGO), often referred to as green or agricultural diesel.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins found as a material fact in the case that the farmer, haulier and agricultural contractor had paid out \u20ac2.47m for the purchase of the 3.44m litres of green diesel in 2014 and 2015 from a firm.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins also found as a material fact that the farmer was engaged in 2014 and 2015 in the supply of green diesel to other persons \u201cpresumably for profit\u201d and this explains the level of purchases that the farmer made in a way that his carrying on of farming and agricultural contracting does not.<\/p>\n
In his appeal against the Revenue assessment, the farmer stated that he was in no position to pay the \u20ac1.29m excise duty bill and were Revenue to seek to enforce such a debt \u201cit would result in the inevitable collapse of his business\u201d.<\/p>\n
‘Burn my business’<\/p>\n
In his oral evidence at the TAC hearing, the farmer denied that he had received 3.44m litres of green diesel.<\/p>\n
He said that \u201cI would burn in my business a year would be \u20ac300,000 to \u20ac350,000\u201d and that any fuel acquired over the period in issue was used for \u201charvesters and tractors and drying grain\u201d.<\/p>\n
The farmer challenged the \u20ac1.2m excise duty assessment, claiming that the sum assessed represented an \u201cabsurd\u201d amount of green diesel for use on a maize farm or for agricultural contracting.<\/p>\n
He also denied that he had made supplies of fuel to other farmers in the area.<\/p>\n
At hearing, counsel for Revenue put it to the farmer that a supplier\u2019s statement from the firm selling the green diesel to him confirmed that between April 2014 and July 2015, the farmer received green diesel at a cost of \u20ac2.47m and this statement formed the basis for the Revenue excise duty assessment of \u20ac1.2m.<\/p>\n
Counsel for the Revenue pointed out that the supplier\u2019s statement was provided by the farmer\u2019s own agent to Revenue in 2016.<\/p>\n
Arrangement<\/p>\n
Counsel for the Revenue put it to the farmer that his agent in correspondence with Revenue in 2016 said that the farmer had an arrangement with farmers for the purchase and supply of agri diesel by payment of cash as he was able to purchase at a favourable rate in large quantities. <\/p>\n
In response, the farmer said that his agent\u2019s response did not in fact reflect reality and was \u201clunacy\u201d.<\/p>\n
In his findings, Mr O\u2019Higgins found that the absence of any corroboration of the farmer\u2019s bare assertions regarding the level of green diesel that he received in 2014 and 2015 \u201ccauses the commissioner to doubt his oral evidence on this matter and to find that it lacks credibility\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins said that, as such, there is no basis upon which to conclude that the excise duty assessment was in error on the grounds that it overestimated the level of MGO received by the appellant in the relevant years.<\/p>\n
At hearing, Mr O\u2019Higgins said that the farmer\u2019s revised account that all of the green diesel he acquired was used in the course of his farming and agricultural contracting activities was unconvincing.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins also found that the farmer, both in investigation correspondence and at hearing, was asked to provide the names of the farmers that he had supplied the green diesel and despite this request, he did not provide any.<\/p>\n
The report states that the TAC has been requested to state and sign a case for the opinion of the High Court.<\/p>\n
The hearing into the appeal was heard at the fourth attempt. For the first two hearing dates, the farmer provided a note from his GP that he was not in a position to deal with the hearing due to his poor mental health.<\/p>\n
On the third scheduled hearing date, it was adjourned after the Commission was told that the farmer was involved in a road traffic accident en route to Dublin and had been taken to hospital by ambulance.<\/p>\n
A farmer, haulier and agricultural contractor has lost a \u20ac1.55m tax battle with Revenue Commissioners in a dispute over green diesel.<\/p>\n
This follows the Tax Appeals Commission (TAC) upholding an assessment served on the agri contractor and farmer by the Revenue Commissioners in 2018 concerning excise duty, income tax and VAT.<\/p>\n
The bulk of the assessment concerned a \u20ac1.29m excise duty bill for green diesel while, the income tax bill of \u20ac214,663 and VAT bill of \u20ac54,072 also related to the green diesel.<\/p>\n
The lower-taxed green diesel is used mainly for agricultural work and is strictly restricted to off-road purposes.<\/p>\n
The sharp rise in the price of green diesel, which has nearly doubled from \u20ac0.97 per litre in February to \u20ac1.80 in recent weeks, was one of the driving factors in protesters mounting blockades at major ports and oil depots in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway and locations across the motorway system.<\/p>\n
Alleged receipt<\/p>\n
In the case before the TAC, appeals commissioner Conor O\u2019Higgins said that the excise duty assessment arose from the appellant\u2019s alleged receipt of 3.44m litres of ultra-low sulphur marked gas oil (MGO), often referred to as green or agricultural diesel.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins found as a material fact in the case that the farmer, haulier and agricultural contractor had paid out \u20ac2.47m for the purchase of the 3.44m litres of green diesel in 2014 and 2015 from a firm.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins also found as a material fact that the farmer was engaged in 2014 and 2015 in the supply of green diesel to other persons \u201cpresumably for profit\u201d and this explains the level of purchases that the farmer made in a way that his carrying on of farming and agricultural contracting does not.<\/p>\n
In his appeal against the Revenue assessment, the farmer stated that he was in no position to pay the \u20ac1.29m excise duty bill and were Revenue to seek to enforce such a debt \u201cit would result in the inevitable collapse of his business\u201d.<\/p>\n
‘Burn my business’<\/p>\n
In his oral evidence at the TAC hearing, the farmer denied that he had received 3.44m litres of green diesel.<\/p>\n
He said that \u201cI would burn in my business a year would be \u20ac300,000 to \u20ac350,000\u201d and that any fuel acquired over the period in issue was used for \u201charvesters and tractors and drying grain\u201d.<\/p>\n
The farmer challenged the \u20ac1.2m excise duty assessment, claiming that the sum assessed represented an \u201cabsurd\u201d amount of green diesel for use on a maize farm or for agricultural contracting.<\/p>\n
He also denied that he had made supplies of fuel to other farmers in the area.<\/p>\n
At hearing, counsel for Revenue put it to the farmer that a supplier\u2019s statement from the firm selling the green diesel to him confirmed that between April 2014 and July 2015, the farmer received green diesel at a cost of \u20ac2.47m and this statement formed the basis for the Revenue excise duty assessment of \u20ac1.2m.<\/p>\n
Counsel for the Revenue pointed out that the supplier\u2019s statement was provided by the farmer\u2019s own agent to Revenue in 2016.<\/p>\n
Arrangement<\/p>\n
Counsel for the Revenue put it to the farmer that his agent in correspondence with Revenue in 2016 said that the farmer had an arrangement with farmers for the purchase and supply of agri diesel by payment of cash as he was able to purchase at a favourable rate in large quantities. <\/p>\n
In response, the farmer said that his agent\u2019s response did not in fact reflect reality and was \u201clunacy\u201d.<\/p>\n
In his findings, Mr O\u2019Higgins found that the absence of any corroboration of the farmer\u2019s bare assertions regarding the level of green diesel that he received in 2014 and 2015 \u201ccauses the commissioner to doubt his oral evidence on this matter and to find that it lacks credibility\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins said that, as such, there is no basis upon which to conclude that the excise duty assessment was in error on the grounds that it overestimated the level of MGO received by the appellant in the relevant years.<\/p>\n
At hearing, Mr O\u2019Higgins said that the farmer\u2019s revised account that all of the green diesel he acquired was used in the course of his farming and agricultural contracting activities was unconvincing.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins also found that the farmer, both in investigation correspondence and at hearing, was asked to provide the names of the farmers that he had supplied the green diesel and despite this request, he did not provide any.<\/p>\n
The report states that the TAC has been requested to state and sign a case for the opinion of the High Court.<\/p>\n
The hearing into the appeal was heard at the fourth attempt. For the first two hearing dates, the farmer provided a note from his GP that he was not in a position to deal with the hearing due to his poor mental health.<\/p>\n
On the third scheduled hearing date, it was adjourned after the Commission was told that the farmer was involved in a road traffic accident en route to Dublin and had been taken to hospital by ambulance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A farmer, haulier and agricultural contractor has lost a \u20ac1.55m tax battle with Revenue Commissioners in a dispute…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,175616,158270,1457,1322,63461,175617,61,60,43,11522,5066],"class_list":{"0":"post-397211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-contracting","10":"tag-contributor","11":"tag-court","12":"tag-debt","13":"tag-diesel","14":"tag-green-diesel","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-revenue-commissioners","19":"tag-tax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}