Please help - not filling in tax return investigation?

[jrs123]

Hello all

I wanted to ask you all what you think might happen to me. I am currently very worried about the trouble I have caused for my self.

In the middle of 2005 I had 3 houses, 3 flats in Spain and had some PAYE income and some self employed income. I had some legal issues in the States due to some problems I caused to do with trademark infringement, which I settled out of court.

I sold all 3 houses and moved to Spain. I didn't tell the Inland revenue I'd moved or fill in a tax return since I left for Spain. I left a couple of credit cards behind too.

Since then I have spent some time in Spain and some time in the UK. The longest spell was around 13 months, then a few stints of 6 months.

I had a credit agreement with Orange which I left at my old address but I had to move it to my girlfriends address to enable me to receive my PAC code in the post.

I know the Inland revenue have been digging around in my credit history as they have sent reminders to that address.

I am now living in the UK permanently and have not filled in a tax return in 5 years.

Apart from the reminders sent to my ex girlfriends address, I have not heard from the inland revenue.

I have some income now, and I know I have not paid the capital gains on 2 houses, so I assume I am in real trouble with the HMRC.

I did setup some mail redirects so my mail was redirected abroad.

I defaulted on some debt too, and if the HMRC have the keys to my credit history I would have looked like a bit of a looser (who had recently sold houses and paid off mortgages).

I have sold 2 of my flats in Spain and let one get repossessed by the bank.

I now want to get a girlfriend and have a family and don't want to be in any bother, and I know I certainly can't go and buy a house etc etc.

My questions are:

If I added up how much I owe and went bankrupt now will I be ok? - discharged within a year?

How much effort will the inland revenue be making to look for me? (I have not heard from them recently and have been on voters roll, paid council tax, paid tv licence, had bt line, had credit cards/bank accounts, water/electric bills etc etc)

What is the likelihood I have a warrant out for my arrest? I am very worried about going on holiday as I don't want to get pulled up at the airport.

[mullet]

If I added up how much I owe and went bankrupt now will I be ok? - discharged within a year?

You might be OK, but your creditors won't be.

How much effort will the inland revenue be making to look for me?

Impossible to say. It depends on what you have (or haven't) done and how determined particular HMRC employees are to find you.

What is the likelihood I have a warrant out for my arrest? I am very worried about going on holiday as I don't want to get pulled up at the airport.

There has to be debt and default before arrest is possible. So unless someone has court judgements against you arrest is unlikely.

If you want to be able to sleep at night engage an accountant who is experienced in this sort of thing and then contact HMRC and tell them all they need to know. And pay what you can. Sorry to sound moralistic, but I am a fully paid up member of the "I pay my tax so I don't see why you should get away with not paying yours" club.

[wamstax]

I am not an insolvency practitioner but I understand that debts (e.g. tax) that have been amassed becaused of fraudulent activity may not be dismissed in a bankruptcy so that you would be best to see an insolvency practitioner in this respect. Clearly depending on the actions that you took it might not be as easy to shirk your responsibilities.

As regards HMRC the only course I would recommend to any client would be make a full disclosure and see how much you can pay to settle the outstanding bills. If you don't have the necessary assets then you cannot get blood out of a stone and this might be the best way forward with HMRC agreeing to take what ever you have to allow you to join the club. Of course there can be no gaurantees and you might end up straight back to paragraph one above if you don't have the assets and they won't do a deal.

I note that you suggest they might tthink that you are a loser however nobody should judge a book by its cover - e.g. have you salted your spare funds off where you think nobody will find them? Just a thought but could backfire badly on you if you had and didn't disclose that fact