Company director guilty of misappropriating €61,000 in unpaid VAT

A company director has been handed a suspended sentence after being found guilty of misappropriating nearly €61,000 by failing to pay his VAT bill.

61-year-old Mario Cachia was charged with non-payment of VAT in 2010 and the preceding years. A representative of the VAT department testified that the accused had effectively misappropriated €60,867.02 from the department. The amount was the total stated in his returns, but which had not been paid.

The representative pointed out that the staggering sum did not include fines or interest.

Police Inspector Maurice Calleja had testified that he had called Calleja in for questioning after receiving a criminal complaint from the VAT department in his capacity as Director of Plumelec Limited, a single member company in which Mario Cachia was listed as the director, secretary and sole shareholder.

The court noted that the accused, who elected not to testify in proceedings, had also failed to meet the court appointed legal aid lawyer and constrained the court to rely solely on his initial statement to the police.

He had admitted that he had been aware of outstanding balances due to the department going back to 2001 and claimed that he had not paid them as he was prevented from doing so due to financial difficulties.

He told Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera that he would submit his VAT returns simply to avoid being sent assessments by the department. Asked if the company he represented had sufficient funds to pay the sum due to VAT department, he said it didn’t.

The court held that it was clear that the monies due to the department had been put to other use due to the financial problems it was facing and said that this was precisely the behaviour contemplated in the crime of misappropriation.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera found Cachia guilty on the strength of his initial statement to police, handing down an 18-month sentence, suspended for four years.