(Trinidad Express) Twenty charges of fraud, tax evasion and money laundering have been laid against acting Assistant Commissioner of the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) Finbar Boland.
Last Friday, police went to the Inland Revenue Division (IRD), Government Campus in Port of Spain, where they arrested Boland and took him to the Besson Street Police Station in connection with the offences he allegedly committed between 2014 and 2018.
He is facing five charges each of making false and misleading statements in his tax returns by falsely claiming and receiving tax refunds he was not entitled to; not declaring considerable amounts of other sources of income apart from his salary at the BIR to avoid paying taxes on those amounts; cheating the public revenue of tax payable by non-declaration of the additional sources of income; and money laundering by way of depositing in his personal bank accounts refund cheques from the BIR obtained by false representations in his tax returns.
$.2m bail
Boland, 59, of Finland Street, Woodbrook, appeared before Master Margaret Sookraj-Goswami on Monday and was granted bail in the sum of $.2 million. The master had issued an arrest warrant for Boland on July 8, which had specified that upon his arrest he was not to be granted bail.
Following the reading of the charges on Monday, Boland was not called upon to plead.
As a condition of his bail, he is required to report to St James police once per month until his next appearance in court on June 4, 2025, with a sufficiency hearing being scheduled for June 18 next year.
The charges were laid following investigations by Adesh Ramdeo, an investigator with the Criminal Tax Investigations Unit of the IRD.
False or deceptive statements
During Monday’s hearing, Boland, a field auditor V, was represented by attorneys John Heath, SC, and Ravi Rajcoomar; while Evans Welch, legal consultant and tax fraud prosecutor, appeared on behalf of the IRD.
According to the five charges, for the years 2014 to 2018, Boland knowingly made false or deceptive statements in individual income tax returns contrary to section 119(1)(a) of the Income Tax Act Chap 75:01.
The five charges are that he claimed entitlement to a personal income tax allowance for first-time home ownership in the sum of $18,000 and falsely claimed a refund of tax paid in the sum of $4,500 and which was received by him by way of cheque from the BIR.
Boland is also accused of knowingly making false and misleading statements in his income tax returns by declaring he had received zero income from sources other than his BIR salary for the years in question, when he had in fact received significant additional income.
The particulars of those charges were that from 2014 to 2018, Boland received additional income in the sums of $349,605; $630,026.05; $393,697.32; $671,596.57 and $915,141.84, respectively.
Further, he faces another five charges of cheating public revenue contrary to common law by claiming tax-deductible allowances he was not entitled to, and failing to declare the additional income, thereby depriving the State of tax revenue on the sums of $91,901.50; $162,006.01; $104,674.33; $174,149.14 and $236,053.75.
Cheques deposited
The final five charges of money laundering were laid contrary to Section 45(1)(b) of the Proceeds of Crime Act Chap. 11:27.
According to the particulars of those charges, he knowingly converted criminal property, namely BIR income tax refund cheques for each of the five years when he deposited the said cheques into his personal bank accounts held in various commercial banks, knowing that the said cheques were generated and issued as a result of false representations made by him.
Those five cheques carried a combined total of $28,749.
