Director Pleads Guilty to Tax Charges

Officers from the Criminal Tax Investigations Unit of the Board of Inland Revenue executed a search warrant on the National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB), seizing the invoice submitted in the $.5 million contract awarded to a marketing employee. The company, Fontaine Branding Solutions Ltd was awarded the contract to supply promotional items for Carnival and corporate events.

Criminal Tax Investigators of the BIR requested the original invoice from the National Lotteries Control Board after it was discovered that the VAT registration number on the invoice was false.

In fact, investigations further revealed that Fontaine Branding Solutions Ltd is not VAT-registered and the number 101578 listed on the March 21, 2013 invoice, belongs to Splendid Foods Ltd located at O'Meara Estate in Arima.

The complainant Rawle Sookhoo of the Criminal Tax Investigations Unit, Board of Inland Revenue Division, laid the charges against (1) Mr. Jevon Jeffrey, director and secretary of Fontaine Branding Solutions Limited and (2) Fontaine Branding Solutions Limited a company not registered under the provisions of the Value Added Tax Act, Chapter, 75:06.

Mr. Jeffrey and Fontaine Branding Solutions who sought to recover from the National Lotteries Control Board of 119 Duke Street Port-Of- Spain, an amount represented to be in respect of Value Added Tax, at the standard rate of 15% namely the sum of sixty-six thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars $66,750.00 pleaded guilty to both charges at the Port of Spain First magistrates' Court on May 18th 2015.

This matter is adjourned to June 30, 2015 for sentencing.