Examination of Witnesses (Questions 210
- 219)
WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2002
MR ROBIN
MARTIN, MR
KEITH MOORE
AND MS
NAOMI FERGUSON
Chairman
210. Good afternoon, lady and gentlemen. Thank
you very much for coming to help us in the inquiry that we are
conducting into the financing of terrorism in Northern Ireland.
The evidence which you give is being taken in private and we hope
you will be as frank as you possibly can with us and in return
what I say to you is that we will send you a transcript of what
you say and if there are any matters which you feel are of a sensitive
nature and should not be published we will consider that. We have
done this with the Assistant Chief Constable, we have done it
with another senior police officer and we have simply put asterisks
where they have said some sensitive things to us so that those
remarks do not see the light of day. At the same time it is very
helpful to us if you can give us examples or share with us frankly
some of the sensitive aspects of what you do. We will give you
that guarantee in return. Please, any one of you feel free to
answer or chip in according to your areas of expertise. Can we
start perhaps with you telling us something of your difficulties
of investigating in Northern Ireland, some of the aspects which
makes tax investigation difficult or sensitive, I know the answer
to some of this from my time there, and in what circumstances
do you refer matters to the Special Compliance Office?
(Mr Martin) Perhaps, Chairman, I could ask Keith Moore
to start on this who has actually himself been engaged in investigations
in Northern Ireland over quite a period. I think he will be able
to fire off with some remarks.
211. Right.
(Mr Moore) My experience goes back to 1991 when I
started as an investigator in Manchester covering Northern Ireland.
From 1995 I was dealing with criminal investigations of tax offences
in Northern Ireland. Now I have responsibility for criminal investigation,
operational policy issues across the Special Compliance Office,
including Northern Ireland. My experience goes back over ten years.
The two main areas of difficulty in dealing with tax investigations
in Northern Ireland stem firstly from security and secondly the
existence of a land border which is unique to the rest of the
United Kingdom. Dealing with the security aspect, first of all,
we can never be sure whether an individual who is under investigation
has connections with paramilitary organisations. That may become
apparent at the start of an investigation, depending on how we
have come across the investigation, or it may become apparent
during the course of the investigation. So our investigators are
security aware at all times in dealing with Northern Ireland investigations.
212. Just to interrupt you and ask: are you
able, within your rules, to cross-check with the police and Special
Branch and other agencies in Northern Ireland as to whether there
are paramilitary connections with the subject you are investigating?
(Mr Moore) We carry out checks with the police service
in Northern Ireland and we have established links for doing that.
We do not do it automatically in every case but if we have any
suspicions whatsoever then we will check through those sources.
Also, we rely on local knowledge in the local districts. When
I say our staff are security aware all of the time that they are
dealing with Northern Ireland work, that is not a situation which
is unique to Northern Ireland, there are other areas within the
UK where we deal with cases where we will take similar precautions.
When I say security awareness, we are careful in making travelling
arrangements. We keep as low a profile as we can when we are in
and around Northern Ireland and we would in cases of any doubt
whatsoever arrange all meetings within tax offices. In certain
cases we might even arrange meetings in police stations for the
taking of witness statements, for instance, on odd occasions.
As far as the other difficulties go, the existence of the land
border makes it very easy for taxpayers who wish to to walk down
the road or drive down the road and put money in a bank account
outside of the jurisdiction. On the mainland that requires a flight
perhaps or to make use of banking facilities which may well be
traced at some point. Also, in the Northern Ireland context, the
family connections across the border very often make an address
for a bank account and so on available which is not a situation
which is quite so often available in the rest of the UK. Those
are the two main difficulties in terms of carrying out our type
of work in Northern Ireland.
213. Could you just explain for us the difference
between a Northern Ireland resident who wishes to evade tax and
takes his money into the Republic and puts it into an Irish bank,
and the British resident—English, Scottish, Welsh—who
takes his money to a bank in Jersey in order to evade tax. Is
there a difference? Is one harder to detect than the other?
(Mr Moore) There is no difference and the detection
of it, if the money is taken out of the jurisdiction in cash and
deposited in a bank account, the difficulty for us in discovering
that is the same in those two situations.
214. That is not a special Northern Ireland
problem?
(Mr Moore) It is easier in Northern Ireland because,
first of all, you have not got the flights and the travel difficulties
of doing that which are very often traceable. Any means of getting
to the Isle of Man or Jersey or Guernsey may appear in your expenditure
somewhere. People do not tend to be quite as careful about the
credit card slip for a flight, for instance, whereas if all you
have got to do is jump in your car and drive down to Dublin that
is something which is going to be very difficult for us to trace.
215. Have you experienced any particular difficulty
with regard to intimidation or threats to your staff?
(Mr Moore) In the last few years—
Chairman: Perhaps you get them in Manchester
as well, I do not know.
Mr McCabe
216. Probably more.
(Mr Moore) In the last few years we have had no threats
within the Northern Ireland context. I am not actually aware of
any threats outside Northern Ireland either. The last threats
of which I am aware within the Special Compliance Office area
go back to 1988/1989 and there were then a number of telephone
and postal incidents which coincided with a number of other circumstances.
For instance, at the same time the tax office in Londonderry was
subject to a bomb attack. The only incident after that was, I
think, in 1992 or 1993 when there was a bomb in the street in
Manchester where our office was at that time but there were a
number of other Revenue offices there and it did not appear to
be directed particularly at our office.
Chairman
217. The second question which I asked you:
in what circumstances is a case referred to the Special Compliance
Office? Is that the same as anywhere else?
(Mr Moore) Yes.
218. There are no different circumstances which
might relate to paramilitaries?
(Mr Moore) No. The circumstances for referring cases
to the Special Compliance Office centre on two factors. Firstly,
the amount of money which appears to be at risk from a suspected
fraud and, secondly, the circumstances within which that fraud
is perpetrated. For instance, are false documents involved, is
it a second offence by somebody, various aggravating circumstances
such as that, the involvement of an accountant for instance.
219. I think what you are saying is there is
no major difference in the way you tackle evasion in Northern
Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom?
(Mr Moore) We try to deal with tax investigations
in Northern Ireland in as close a way as to our methods in the
rest of the UK.
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