Corporation Tax owed / Ltd Co Dissolved

[davidde]

I formerly was a director of a Ltd company that was dissolved in the autumn 2015.
It had approx £3600 owing to hmrc in its final corporation tax bill before it was struck off...
It was due to be paid by 31st Jan this year... I have had no reminders or correspondence about this...
will hmrc pursue the debt? if so who will they pursue as the ltd co is no longer in existence? can they pursue the directors?
Im not looking to avoid the debt, it's just that I don't have the money at the mo - because the business went under.... (not bankrupt just ceased trading)

[RMC]

An application for dissolution under CA 2006 s.1000 should state, among other things, that the company has no creditors. It is an offence to make a dishonest application - you can face a fine and possible prosecution.
Pay the tax.

[jpcentral]

I'm not sure that the statement that the declaration has to state there are no creditors. Using a form DS01 in accordance with S1003 of the Companies Act allows for the application to be made provided that none of the circumstances described in S1004 or S1005 exist. One of the conditions of using the DS01 form is that copies of the application should be sent to all notifiable parties - and these include creditors within 7 days of the application date. There is nothing which actually says that Voluntary Dissolution can't be applied for when there are creditors.

So, if the DS01 form was used and HMRC (and any other notifiable parties) were properly notified, there probably has not been an offence committed under s1000.

However, that does not escape the possibility of the director personally becoming liable for the corporation tax or escaping personal prosecution. The safest route would be to pay the corporation tax. It may be possible to come to a time to pay arrangement with HMRC but you would need to contact them. If you leave it until they contact you, they are unlikely to allow time to pay and will probably impose heavy penalties.

My advice is to contact HMRC, advise them of the situation and negotiate. Of course there is a possibility that it might get overlooked if you don't - it depends on how much of a gambler you are.

Having said all of that, it appears that the company continued to trade for several months after April, which is presumably the year end for which the tax was due. Are you sure that there were not transactions within the company which would have resulted in a loss for the period after April 2015 which could have been used to offset the tax due for the previous period? That might be an argument when (if) you approach HMRC.