The company which started the Palas arthouse cinema project, and later had to pass it off after years of financial issues, has been named in the latest tax defaulters list.
Solas-Galway Picture Palace Company Limited has €821,353 owed to the Revenue Commissioners, unpaid as of June 30 of this year.
This comes from €575,457 owed under the non-declaration of VAT, along with €73,259 in interest, and penalties totalling €172,637.
The company went into liquidation in July of 2017, leaving a debt of €821,353 to “unsecured creditors” and assets of just €2,124 which were used to pay liquidator’s fees.
Solas previously came under heavy criticism from the Charities Regulator for its handling of public donations over the course of almost a decade.
In a report published in May 2018, the charities regulator said that Solas reported no income after 2007, despite continuing to receive charitable donations.
It instead listed these monies as liabilities, despite that fact that there was no obligation or expectation for the registered charity to repay them.
In 2016, the now Palas cinema was transferred to the Dublin based company Element Pictures, who continue to operate it.
The latest tax defaulters list from the Revenue for the second quarter of 2020 includes 25 settlements totalling €8,491,348 owed, of which €4,821,659 was unpaid as of June 30.
The single largest case on the list was €1,216,196 owed by Dr Kevin Hickey Unlimited from Limerick for the under declaration of Corporation Tax and PAYE/PRSI/USC, of which all has been paid.
Dr Hickey also appeared on the list as a second time, as a private individual, with a settlement of almost €600,000 for the under declaration of income tax.
