The High Court has ordered judgment in two Revenue tax recovery cases, finding that the assessed tax debts were due and that the solicitor’s fee agreement did not make the proceedings champertous.
Mr Justice Michael Quinn delivered the judgment on 16 January 2024, after the cases were heard together. The plaintiff, Joseph Howley, is the Collector General and a Revenue Commissioners officer. The defendants are Paul Howard and Una McClean.
Revenue claimed €1,210,704.32 in tax and surcharges from Mr Howard and €302,535.41 from Ms McClean, together with interest. The court ordered judgment for the amounts of taxes, surcharges and interest claimed in the summons, plus interest at the rate claimed under section 1080 of the Taxes Consolidation Act. The judgment does not state a single final total for each defendant in its concluding order.
The assessments had been appealed to the Tax Appeals Commission. In August 2021, the Appeal Commissioner determined that the assessments should stand for the years where valid appeals had been made, and found no valid appeals for three other years. A request for a case stated was refused. Mr Howard later failed to obtain leave for judicial review of that refusal, and did not appeal that decision.
The defendants disputed the amounts and relied on an accountant’s view that Mr Howard owed substantially less. The judge held that this evidence did not displace the statutory certificates of the tax due or the final and conclusive effect of the Appeals Commission determination. The court also noted Mr Howard’s phased payment application, which stated the tax debt and proposed instalments; Revenue did not accept the application, and no payment had been made against the balances claimed.
The defendants argued that the 2020 agreement between Revenue and its solicitors was champertous because some fees were calculated as a percentage of amounts collected, and that the agreement could mislead a costs adjudicator. Revenue and the firm later agreed to delete a separate costs provision, with the change applying retrospectively. The judge concluded that the original agreement provided for ordinary costs subject to adjudication and credit for earlier payments, and did not share the fruits of the tax litigation with the solicitors. He found the action had not been maintained in a champertous manner and rejected the allegation that the agreement permitted fraudulent misrepresentation.
The judge said he did not need to decide whether champerty could otherwise defeat a tax claim, but addressed the issue in case his primary conclusion was wrong. He concluded that it could not be used to defeat claims for taxes certified as finally due. He also questioned whether the later amendment alone would make a champerty defence moot, but said that point did not affect the outcome.