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Dorset director jailed for £1m VAT fraud

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26th Feb 2013
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A Dorset building company director who made fake VAT repayment claims of £1m was jailed for 18 months for fraud.

Stuart Cleveland Price, a 48-year-old director of three building companies, faked invoices to reclaim VAT between 2007 and 2011.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of VAT fraud at Bournemouth Crown Court in January and received his prison sentence last week.

HMRC expected to uncover £9m worth of invoices following an investigation into Price’s affairs, but only a “fraction” of this appeared in his trading records.

Price’s companies include ECO Homes Constructions Ltd, The Steel Frame Company Ltd and SIPS ECO Panels Direct Ltd.

HMRC officers raided Price’s home and business address in June 2011, took his business records and discovered he traded for a number of years before submitting the fraudulent VAT repayment claims.

Assistant director of criminal investigation at HMRC John Cooper said that Price had deceived honest businesses as well as HMRC.

“When he was asked for documentation to support the repayment claims, he produced bank statements that had been doctored with amounts that did not add up. He also provided invoices that had genuine headings but where the details were false,” Cooper said.

HMRC will be seeking to recover the stolen VAT repayments in a confiscation hearing later.

This case is the latest in a string of people convicted for VAT fraud over the past few months, including a Dundee DJ jailed for over £20m and a barrister convicted for £600k.

Gabelle's John Hood said the increasing cases are due to HMRC's promise of a fivefold increase into the number of criminal investigations it will undertake.

"In relation to the recent VAT fraud prosecutions, HMRC have targeted businesses that claim VAT repayments and are found to have made fraudulent claims, the focus being on the validity of the invoices claimed for input tax purposes." Hood said. 

"Businesses that have failed to submit their returns and pay the VAT on time will be targeted by an HMRC taskforce with a likely result of more severe penalties and in the worst cases a criminal investigation may follow.

"HMRC are very much project focused nowadays and will utilise the knowledge and experience gathered from previous investigations to target what are perceived to be high-risk areas."

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