Paradise Papers: Mrs Brown's Boys stars 'diverted £2m to tax avoidance scheme'

Three stars of BBC sitcom Mrs Brown's Boys diverted more than £2m (€2.26m) to a tax-avoidance scheme according to the Paradise Papers leak that has revealed the offshore investments of numerous high-profile celebrities.

The papers reveal that Patrick Houlihan and Martin and Fiona Delany transferred money to companies in Mauritius that they effectively owned, as part of a scheme similar to those that have been challenged and investigated by HMRC in the past.

Their money came from fees issued from the production company behind the hit comedy, which is owned by Brendan O'Carroll, the creator and the star of the show.

O'Carroll, who is also Fiona Delany's father, told the BBC that neither he nor his companies have been involved in tax-avoidance schemes, and that the actor's wages were paid into a UK company bank account.

Money for the actor's work was paid from O'Carroll's production company into a UK company account that transferred the money to a trust in Mauritius, which itself took 12.5%.

The rest was then transferred, either directly or via a self-employed benefit trust, to companies owned by the actors that then use a third party to pay 'loans' into the actor's bank accounts.

They would then "recommend" that the earnings be paid back to their personal accounts in the form of loans structured to dodge rules brought in to to prevent similar schemes.

The evidence comes from offshore law firm Appleby, and details the exact figures that were funnelled through the scheme.

Houlihan and the Delanys have not commented on the revelations. BBC Panorama's Richard Bilton confronted Fiona Delany, but she refused to comment.

The documents show that in the 2014-15 financial year, Martin Delany's offshore company received £448,095 and Fiona Delany's received £448,168. Documentation for the following financial year shows Paddy Houlihan's company had assets of £696,349

Fiona Delany's had £715,122, and her husband's £725,030.

Mrs Brown's Boys has been a huge hit since it first aired in 2011. It stars O'Carroll as the matriarch of an Irish family. The three actors in question played members of the Brown family.

Houlihan and the Delanys were put in touch with advisers behind the scheme by accountant Roy Lyness, who was also behind a Jersey-based tax avoidance used by comedian Jimmy Carr in 2012.

The Paradise Papers are a huge batch of leaked documents sent to a German newspaper, which then became the subject of an enormous, global investigation headed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Among the high profile names named in the papers are the Queen, Bono, Madonna and Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kuschner.