QC faces jail after pocketing VAT for 12 years
A London silk faces jail after being convicted of a £600,000 VAT fraud.
Rohan Anthony Pershad QC, who practised from Thirty Nine Essex Street, was convicted at Blackfriars Crown Court (pictured) today of one count of cheating the public revenue, between 1 June 1999 and 24 September 2011.
The jury had heard that Pershad had failed to pay VAT for 12 years, despite adding VAT to his bills. As a result, he retained an additional income of £624,579.
Pershad had claimed that his chambers had given the impression that payment of his VAT had been taken care of.
Specialist fraud prosecutor Keri Ashworth-Beaumont said: ‘By convicting him today, the jury has concluded that Pershad was acting dishonestly and his failure to pay was not simply an error or mistake.’
She said: ‘Pershad always admitted that he understood the law and the responsibility for meeting his obligations rested on him alone. The message is clear; paying tax is not an optional extra, in any area of working life and withholding tax dishonestly may lead to prosecution.’
Last month the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer QC spoke about the importance of prosecuting tax evasion, which he said costs the British economy £14bn a year in lost revenue, equivalent to £769 for every family in the UK.
In 2010-11, the Crown Prosecution Service successfully prosecuted around 200 tax evasion cases. Starmer said he wants that figure to increase five-fold over the next five years to 2014/15.
Pershad will be sentenced later this month. He was remanded on conditional bail and told to expect a custodial sentence.
Thirty Nine Essex Street said in a statement: ‘It is and always has been clear that all members of these chambers, in common with all other self-employed barristers, are personally responsible to account to, and pay, HMRC for VAT received, and for income tax, and it is right that tax evasion should be appropriately punished when proved.
‘On notice of his prosecution, Rohan agreed to the voluntary suspension of his membership of chambers pending the outcome of the trial, and given the circumstances he will no longer be a member.’
Comments
One QC Down - How Many More To Go?
The days when membership of The English Bar put one beyond reproach have been well and truly over for some many years.
There are more in those stables.
But crooked barristers are not being caught fast enough. They are not being caught at all.
Others at the Bar who could say keep it zipped up.
It has been going on for
It has been going on for many, many years.
Strange that, wouldn’t you say?
With Solicitors' Professional Indemnity Insurance rates amongst the highest in all professions - because of solicitors pocketing their client’s funds (and supposedly running off to the Bahamas etc) – this isn’t the time for those in glass houses to throw stones.
I also find it amusing that Harry Redknapp is cleared of all tax avoidance when it is found that he has substantial funds in a bank account in his dog’s name, yet an ethnic minority origin QC is convicted despite thinking that his chambers paid the VAT (at 17.5%) due out of the circa. 22% it took from his fees.
Strange that, wouldn’t you say?
Strange
Not really, no.
Rather strange
Not as surprising as you may think, I know many a lawyer who cannot get to grips with numbers, how often do you hear “I’m not a numbers person”.
Tax is considered a specialist and quite niche area (and quite boring!) VAT is always someone else’s problem.
Whereas putting a seven figure sums in an offshore bank account in your pet dogs name, and be white whilst doing it, you seem to get off scot-free.
An observation, one that you may find unpalatable and seek deny until you are blue in the face.
Strange
Not really, no.
Solicitors PI is high, not
Solicitors PI is high, not because of theft by solicitors, but because lenders have blamed solicitors for their own reckless lending-and sought to recover their losses from the PI cover.
The PI insurers are more than happy with this because their profits are hugely disproportionate (how about tackling that, Grayling?) and it allows them to raise premiums further.
Culture and tax
The following are not guilty of tax evasion: Google, Starbucks, Vodaphone, Amazon. The moral and cultural dimension however is a wider one and the above wealthy organisations have rightly attracted criticism for their arrangements.
The duty to pay taxes has always given rise to grumbling; usually most vocally from those who have an above-average ability to pay it ! I suggest that this is the only relevant "culture" to be referred to and if any intended above reference to ethnicity as a "prompt" for illegal behaviour, is founded only on prejudice.
Squaring the impossible circle
I'd love to know how the CPS is going to increase tax evasion prosecutions five hold while at the same cutting its budget by a third. Tax and fraud prosecutions are the most expensive prosecutions, they are less than 1% of all cases but swallow up almost half the CPS budget. Good luck Mr Starmer.
All the more reason for
All the more reason for prosecuting dishonest barristers - they cant say they wont know the law and there will presumably be a good papertrail...
How Could A QC Think His Chambers Paid The VAT
That is ridiculous. And it was proven to the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt it was not true.
Convicted QC
Linking Pershad's conviction to his ethnicity is an insult to the jury. A fraud carried out over 12 years and involving £650,000 is hardly a mistake and presumably sufficient evidence was adduced demonstrating that. All fraudsters barristers or otherwise are common thieves and should be subjected to the same opprobrium. This theivery has been tolerated for too long in the UK and Americans now consider London to be the fraud capital of the world.
Convicted QC
One of the more worrying features of the case is how long it has taken to reach this point! If the QC stopped paying his VAT in 1999, why was action not taken by HMRC a lot sooner! How does it take 14 years to prosecute what appears to be a clear cut case of should have paid but didn't....?
convicted QC
I have to agree with Fiona, above: its not as if there is much liklihood of a QC being under the threshold to pay VAT. Surely this must have/should have come to light before now.
Is the Revenue going to recover this money?
Vat Fraud
Barristers have traditionally had this ethereal detachment from the vulgarity of having to handle the filthy lucre. All they need to do is present erudite arguments about it in court and wait for some solicitor to rush after them, as the disappear through the Bear Garden and place a waddage of the awful stuff in the back pocket of their gown. It is an archaic model that serves well those who later ascend to the judiciary. It is not unlike Bishops, who rarely get involved in the rough and tumble of day to day dioceasan disputes. And when a silk does mess up big time the whole thing seems to be shrouded in some misunderstanding, the obvious becomes complicated, clarity is presented as unfathomably nebulous; the error and confusion must surely be with someoneelse. This privileged lustre is likley to be increasingly tested as different models for barristers chambers to handle clients money become common place.
I think it's pretty
I think it's pretty outrageous that a Barrister has been prosecuted in this way.
As our wonderful Judges always tell us, Barristers never make mistakes - and when they do, it's the whole fault of their grubby little instructing solicitor...
Bent Barrister
Shawshank Redemption springs to mind....
When I was managing my own
When I was managing my own practice, we used to get a visit from HMRC if we were even so much as a week late in paying the PAYE or VAT. There must be more to this case than meets the eye. Was the eminent gentleman so unworldly and confused that he ommitted to register in the first place? Many barristers of my acquaintance stuff papers in a drawer and ignore them but that only ever leads to insolvency and potential bankruptcy so there must have been a high level of deliberate evasion for this to have got to the Crown Court. This is no more an ethnicity thing than the disproprtionate number of non white solicitors who are up before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
VAT Fraud - More than meets the eye
I am sure I was not alone in finding this story interesting.
Usually the national press at all levels would have found this news worthy.On Monday I used Google in the hope of perhaps reading more in the press. On Monday all Google returns related to the preliminary hearings last year.
A further search this morning still has little from national press but a link to the website site www.accountancyage.com produces a far more detailed report of the historical background facts.
This was not simply a case of failing to pay VAT legitimately added to his invoices, but not handed to HMRC, It is far more serious.
For those who are curious well worth a read
As I udnerstand it, HMRC are
As I udnerstand it, HMRC are looking at a number of senior counsel for similar matters.
I also understand that Mr P was regarded as a 'missing trader'.
What I find most surprising it that it took HMRC a decade or so to find him, didn't they have the internetm, I mean we're hardly dealing with Lord Lucan are we?
Sentence
This guy is going to get whacked on sentence. Then POCA'd, then costs.
Seven years and £1million later...
Mr. Pershad, was it worth it?