Someone I know (friend of a friend), runs a fork lift hire company, and has done for about 8 years. They have just put their 3rd company into liquidation, and have started trading with a new company (very slightly different business name). They have been through most of the family as directors of the different companies.
I have traced through info on the previous companies, and the pattern seems to be to run the company for about 2 to 3 years before liquidating. The first set of accounts for each company was filed with companies house (and presumably HMRC), but then no subsequent accounts. The companies are then liquidated when pressure builds for the next set of accounts. They appear to have been making serious amounts of money (judging upon houses and cars the family own personally). They have used a different firm of liquidators on each of the 3 occasions.
This is blatant phoenixism, with the main ‘loser’ apparently being HMRC. From what I gather, customers and suppliers of the business are not affected, and keep moving onto the new company.
Maybe I shouldn’t waste my time on this, but I feel very bitter that they appear to be getting away with paying very very little tax over the years, unlike the rest of us.
John
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Report to the Serious Fraud Office
John, if you consider the extent of the possible fraud exceeds £1m and that would include all the previous entities you could report your concerns online to the Serious Fraud Office via their website www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/guidance.asp.
Geoffrey...
...thanks for your post.
No cgt tax planning involved. I have checked all info out at Companies House. Accounts were outstanding on each company for at least 1 or 2 years. This is systematic abuse of the system and 100% classic Phoenixism.
They have tried to be 'clever' using different directors / shareholders, different accountants and different liquidators. The only constant is the slightly different business name.
what type of liquidation?
Have you checked with Companies house whether the companies were insolvent. It's possible that these liquidations were to take advantage of 10% CGT.
Be reasonably sure of your facts before you cast aspersions
Your allegation
John
Your allegation seems to be that a person is using companies dishonestly and deliberately as a means of gaining by non-payment of taxes.
This is a criminal offence. It could fall under fraudulent trading (contrary to Companies Act) or tax evasion or cheating the public purse (contrary to common law).
I presume the key person behind this has not officially been listed as a director of any of the companies. Therefore the link between these companies may not be apparent to the liquidators. However it is still illegal.
If you want you can report this via the tax evasion hotline by phone or online www.taxevasionhotline.co.uk.
Note that they do evaluate reports (many are just gossip or motivated by revenge) so the more information you can provide the more likely they are to act on it.
Alternatively you can report it to SOCA online or by post or fax www.soca.gov.uk/financialIntel/suspectActivity.html.
(Note SOCA will not acknowledge a report sent by post or fax.)
David
S216
If newco also goes into liquidation then the directors can be found personally liable.
If you are particularly aggrieved you could go to Companies House and download the creditors names & addresses from the statement of affairs from the S98 meetings and contact the creditors yourself. Either that, or the Liquidators will provide you with this information.