AVOCA SALE ONE STEP CLOSER - A sale of the Avoca retail and restaurant chain has moved a step closer, with the company now in exclusive negotiations to sell the business, the Irish Independent has learned.
The business has 11 outlets in Ireland, including one on Belfast, and had been in discussions with a number of potential buyers.
"I can confirm that we are in an exclusive period of negotiation with a potential purchaser but would not like to comment further," Avoca chief executive Simon Pratt told the Irish Independent.
Mr Pratt declined to name the prospective buyer. US catering giant Aramark has previously been tipped to buy the business.
Aramark did not respond to a request for comment.
It was previously reported that a delegation from the multinational, including executives from the US and senior members of the local Aramark management team, received a tour of Avoca's premises in May.
Mr Pratt said in January that he was expecting operating profits at the company to surge by 50% to over €3.3m in the current financial year.
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Businesses outside Ireland have received demands purporting to be from the Irish Collector General seeking payments under new EU VAT rules on customers who buy goods over the internet, The Irish Times reports.
The letters, purporting to be from Michael Gladney’s office in Limerick, seek “VAT Moss” payments to a particular account and give the interest rate that will apply to late payments.
However, the banking details given, for a purported account with the Bank of Ireland, College Green, Dublin, do not produce the international bank account number, or Iban, stipulated, when put into the bank’s online Iban calculator. There is a one-digit difference between the Iban produced and the one in the letters.
A spokeswoman for the Revenue was not in a position to comment but said it would look into the matter. The letters have been sent to people registered under the new VAT Moss system in the UK, the Netherlands and possibly the United States.
Under new EU rules, the “place of supply” of telecommunications, broadcasting and e-services to non-taxable persons is the place where the customer usually resides. Taxable businesses which make such supplies are obliged to register, charge and account for VAT in the member state of the customer.
In order to avoid having to register in multiple states, businesses can sign up to a mini-one-stop-shop (Moss) in one state, by way of a web-portal.
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FINTRAX SET TO BE SOLD AGAIN - Galway-based specialist financial services company Fintrax is reportedly set to be sold just three years after being bought for up to €170m, The Irish Examiner reports.
Fintrax — which was founded in Ballinahown, Co Galway — provides, via subsidiary firms, Vat refund services for tourists buying goods overseas and currency conversion technology to allow for credit card purchases to be made in the buyer’s home currency when abroad.
The company, established in the early 1980s by Gerry Barry, changed hands in 2012 when acquired by British private equity company, Exponent.
Mr Barry commercially launched the Vat-back service in Shannon Airport in 1985. Since then, the company has grown to be the second largest in its field and employs around 400 people across offices in 23 countries outside of Ireland.
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UK REVENUE FACES BILLION POUND BILL IF IT LOSES CASES – HM Revenue & Customs will be forced to pay tax refunds running into tens of billions of pounds if it fails to fend off defeat in some of its biggest court battles, its latest accounts show.
The Financial Times reports that over the past two years, the British tax authority has been forced to more than double its “worst-case” estimate, leaving it potentially facing a £42.8bn bill to companies that believe they paid too much tax decades ago.
Refunds of anything like that size would undermine chancellor George Osborne’s efforts to eliminate government borrowing by the next election.
HMRC has been fighting multibillion-pound legal battles with dozens of companies, including Littlewoods, the retailer, BAT, the tobacco group, and Prudential, the insurer, in court hearings in London and Luxembourg.
Chris Morgan, head of tax policy at KPMG, the professional services firm, said some of the key cases were coming to a head.
“There could be tens of billions paid out by 2017-18.”
