Brendan insists co-stars pay their fair share of taxes
‘No-one has done anything illegal’
BRENDAN O’Carroll has insisted Mrs Brown’s Boys stars are not tax avoiders – saying that ‘they do pay their tax’.
The Mrs Brown’s Boys creator has defended three of the show’s actors – insisting that they pay tax monthly on loans which they drew down from an offshore trust so as to avoid a hefty yearly bill.
Mr O’Carroll’s daughter Fiona Delany, her husband Martin and Paddy Houlihan put £2million (€2.3million) into a tax avoidance scheme in Mauritius, it was revealed on BBC’s Panorama.
However, Mr O’Carroll, 62, has said they all paid their tax and that his daughter Fiona paid around €200,000 to the Revenue last year.
The comedian also accused the BBC of attempting to tarnish his successful show and ‘stalking and ambushing’ his daughter following the Paradise Papers revelation.
The Dubliner said: ‘No-one involved with Mrs Brown’s Boys has done anything illegal.
‘Everybody that featured in that show did what they did for completely different reasons.
‘Paddy and Fiona wanted to regularise their income over a period of time so they could pay tax over a longer period of time.
‘What’s really important is that nothing they did was illegal.
‘In the case of Fiona, Paddy, and Marty, not one penny of their BBC money went into that fund. Not one penny of their TV appearances went into that fund, or overseas sales went into that fund. Not one fee went into that fund.’
Mr and Mrs Delaney and fellow actor Mr Houlihan were introduced by accountant Roy Lyness to a tax advice firm called Aston Court, which operated a number of legal offshore trusts and companies designed to reduce users’ tax liabilities in the UK and Ireland, the papers revealed.
The three stars moved money to Mauritius firms and cash was sent back to them as loans which are not subject to income tax, according to the Paradise Papers.
Mr Lyness also helped comedian Jimmy Carr with a similar scheme. Mr Carr later apologised for his involvement. Mr O’Carroll and his TV production company are not involved in the scheme.
Mr O’Carroll, speaking to The Irish Sun about the controversy surrounding the three actors, said: ‘Panorama said that they are paid offshore. That’s b ***** ks. Their fees are paid to a UK agency called Pro Fid who represent them.
‘They invoice us and we pay their fees to Pro Fid who organise whatever they organise with them to give them their monthly salary.
‘In my daughter Fiona’s case I know she paid €200,000 in tax last year. At the time Fiona was ambushed by the BBC guy in Glasgow, she had just done a year-long audit and had a clearance certificate. All her loans were declared.’
Mr O’Carroll, speaking to the Irish Daily Star, further explained: ‘What they did was – when things started to go well for us, our earnings went up. They thought this was great, it was marvellous – until the end of the year when they got their first tax bill, and now had to borrow money to pay tax on their money that they thought was theirs, which is not theirs because half of it was tax. So they were playing catch-up.
‘Then this structure was introduced to them that they would put their money into a trust, draw a wage down every month, which was something like €10,000 a month which was good money.
‘They then would pay tax and insurance on that €10,000 and it gave them an income for the entire year, which is 12 months that we work and the tax is already paid.’
Mr O’Carroll also criticised the BBC for ‘ambushing’ his daughter Fiona over the Paradise Papers revelations outside studios in Scotland when she arrived to film Mrs Brown’s Boys. He added: ‘It seems to be an effort to tarnish the show. We’ve done nothing wrong.’
Mr O’Carroll reportedly said a BBC reporter was ‘stalking and ambushing a young woman walking to work alone’. He told The Irish Sun: ‘They scared the life out of her. Obviously I was angry. Fiona was in tears. I spent the whole day comforting her.
‘I wonder what sort of journalistic craving doing that fulfils for you. The reporter didn’t learn anything from the conversation or the brutal way he approached her. Yet they went ahead and showed it.
‘Fiona was genuinely confused by this guy running up, asking her about her wages. She didn’t know who he was, or what he was talking about... None of the Mrs Brown people have a Rolls-Royce or a yacht. Yet there seems to be an effort going on to tarnish the name of the show. But I’m sure the viewers know us better, that we are upfront, and always have been.’
A BBC spokesman told the Irish Daily Mail yesterday: ‘This investigation shows there is a clear public interest in the information being reported. It has been conducted in a fair and impartial way by our award-winning current affairs programme Panorama and BBC News journalists.
‘A thorough and fair right of reply procedure was followed. We’re satisfied that we’ve acted fairly and followed our editorial guidelines.’
The Mail’s attempts to contact Mr O’Carroll were unsuccessful.