PERRIN: BARRISTER ‘TRICKED INTO ENDORSING TAX SCAM PAIR’
A barrister found himself embroiled in a multi-million pound tax scam that exploited wealthy clients’ charity donations, a court heard today (Tues).
David Perrin, 46, and Robert Faichney, 53, tricked the unnamed tax lawyer into endorsing their product in a marketing pack, it was said.
The pair, both former Inland Revenue Employees, are accused of creaming a huge profit from the operation while working as senior accounting executives at a finance firm Vantis Tax between April 2007 and March 2009.
Clients are said to have included senior City bankers, an Oscar-winning film executive, a celebrity psychiatrist, lawyers and company directors.
Prosecutor Philip Singer QC told the court one of the duo’s colleagues, Simon Todd, wrote to the lawyer at the behest of Faichney.
He was asked to ‘comment on the tax consequences’ for their ‘several clients who wish to make charitable donations’, he added.
‘You will have to decide what you make of Mr Todd,’ Mr Singer told jurors at Blackfriars Crown Court in central London.
‘Whether he was acting on instructions given to him, as simply someone putting into action what he was told.
‘What the barrister wasn’t being told was that there was a very significant difference between the subscription price and the value of the shares donated.
‘Nor was he told how this was to be achieved. The shares had not been acquired.
‘He was led to believe they were dealing with existing shareholders.
‘The big thing the barrister wasn’t told was that this involved a tax mitigation scheme.
‘Had he known that it did, there would have been quite a lot he would have wanted to know before he advised.
‘He wasn’t told his opinion was to be used to promote the product.’
Faichney and Perrin are alleged to have ramped up the prices of Channel Islands-listed firms to try and help customers offset their 40 per cent tax liabilities on £213m of income.
They are also said to have invested in ths scheme themselves in order to claim tax reliefs of more than £400,000 for two years.
Investors were invited to subscribe for shares in four companies, including Clerkenwell Medical Research for small sums, after which the share price was falsely inflated in time for the end of the tax year, jurors have heard.
The value at the time when the gift to charity was made was used to offset tax and the refunds effectively wiped out clients tax bills, allowing them enough spare to pay Perrin and Faichney their commission and give a cut to their financial advisers.
Wives Nicola Perrin, 39, and Shirley Faichney, 53, are also accused of involvement in helping to siphon off £4.55million through CMR.
Independent financial adviser, Vikash Kukar, 57, is also alleged to have helped attract people to the scheme, and to have taken part in it himself.
David Perrin, of Grange Avenue, Leagrave, Luton, in Bedfordshire, and Robert Faichney, of Barnhill, Pinner, Middlesex, each deny two charges of cheating the revenue.
Kukar, of Waldegrave Road, Twickenham, Middlesex, Mrs Perrin and Mrs Faichney, who share the same addresses as their husbands, each deny one charge of cheating the revenue.
The trial continues.
