Which one of you is it?

[vetran]

So where did he get £200k to cover those losses? He had to have money to stay solvent.

And if he could afford to sustain such losses, why could not he afford to get a good lawyer?

probably :

remortgaged the house.

he believed that the truth would set him free, He didn't owe the money and could prove it
however personally having experienced the stupidity inherent in the justice system he was naive.

[Wanderer]

Not invoicing one of his clients, so did the client pay? Or did he neglect to pay the CT on it? If it was £200K's worth of CT he hadn't paid, then that would have been a £million invoice he forgot to send.

He admits that he omitted to write up a few invoices. So how much were the invoices for then? How was he paid the money that caused his accountant/bookkeeper to miss that income? Must have been quite a lot if he got a massive bill. He also said it cost him £50k to sort it all out, how much of a mess were his accounts in then? There's a lot more to this than meets the tearful eye.

The poor chap does sound like he's had a bit of a breakdown but HMRC can't let someone off the hook just because they start crying when they get caught running their business a bit fast and loose....

[AtW]

he believed that the truth would set him free, He didn't owe the money and could prove it however personally having experienced the stupidity inherent in the justice system he was naive.

Well, I don't buy such story. Either not all material facts are told or it's total BS.

[centurian]

Well, I don't buy such story. Either not all material facts are told or it's total BS.

Yeah, something doesn't quite add up. HMRC may not be the sharpest tools in the box, but you don't get a demand for 200K from just having a few missing invoices and petrol receipts.

[tractor]

My accountant warned me that closing the company has no use anymore because HMRC have the power to link previous companies and re open them if they find your current company has issues.

He also pointed out that closing the company will also get you unwanted attention so basically you are screwed either way.

Also when I first opened my company it was visited by a Vat inspector before I got a vat number...

For the record she was really nice and very helpful.

and all the better if you can keep below the VAT threshold and not register for VAT, because a few months after starting a new company one inevitably has a VAT inspection, and now the inspectors demand to see your last two or three contracts, no doubt to see if you're likely to be caught by IR35!

This is not true for everyone. Maybe there are local variations. I know someone who over 25 years had 8 companies (see the csa thread), only ever 1 compliance visit before taxman was velcroed to the vatman, no vat compliance visits and no nothing else either!