Irish lotto chief denies tax advice accusations

Senator Kevin Humphreys has claimed in the Seanad that the National Lottery may have helped people “to defraud our tax system” and has urged Revenue to investigate.

According to the Irish Sun, the tax authority considers that only lotto winners are exempt from Capital Acquisitions Tax on any windfall, and that advice to retrospectively add family and friends to the claim could land National Lottery employees in the slammer.

Revenue told the Irish Sun: “Under Section 1078 Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, an offence is created where a person is knowingly concerned in facilitating the fraudulent evasion of tax by another person.

“A person shall be liable, on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding €126,970 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, or to both the fine and the imprisonment.”

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When quizzed by the Irish Sun about the tax row, the National Lottery insisted that its claims procedure was in accordance with our statutory and regulatory obligations

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A spokesman added: “The National Lottery does not provide professional financial advice directly to our winners but recommends that they seek appropriate and independent advice.”

Confronted with a lengthy list of statements from Lottery representatives saying they do give financial and tax advice to winners, Lotto HQ responded: “We have, and continue to, advise our winners on how to come to terms with their win.

“We have an experienced team that provide this counselling service to our winners. An important element of our service is guiding them to seek appropriate and independent advice and giving tips on how to choose their professional advisers.”

As confusion raged, National Lottery chief Dermot Griffin called to give the Irish Sun “some context” about how his staff deal with winners.

He said: “We take them through what they need to think about. We would say, ‘Naturally there’s tax implications on your win. And it’s not just the win, it’s investments then, deposit interest, think about tax or whatever’.

“We wouldn’t say, you know, ‘This is what you should do’. We would say, ‘You should pick good taxation advisers or accountants or legal’.

“And, again, if they didn’t have help already, we would normally give them a list (of financial advisers), we would normally recommend that they go and talk to just not one, but to talk to a number of them — to see what ones they are comfortable with — and then take them on.

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So our job is being able to point them in the right directions in terms of more specialist advice. That’s the role we fulfil. We don’t pay for their advisers. That’s naturally something they have to select themselves

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At that point in the conversation the Lotto publicity officer, who was patched in, interjected to explain Griffin’s comment about a list.

He said: “Just to clarify, it’s a list of actions that we would normally give to winners, instead of a list of actual professional advisers.”

We then asked Griffin about ­evidence heard in the recent case of Galway man David Walsh, who successfully sued his stepmother Mary Walsh for a share in a €3.38million Lotto jackpot.

Former National Lottery claims manager Eamonn Hughes had told the High Court that while he had no clear recollection of his conversation with Mary Walsh in 2011, he ­conceded during cross-examination that it was possible he had advised her to form a syndicate after her win so relatives could avoid gift tax.

Asked if many syndicates have been formed after a win, he told how it “would have happened on a regular enough basis”.