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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

HMRC interest in Company not declaring income?

jetster
Posts:1
Joined:Tue May 28, 2019 2:03 pm
HMRC interest in Company not declaring income?

Postby jetster » Tue May 28, 2019 2:23 pm

Hello
I am taking legal action against a builder at the small claims court and I have a question about the builder's tax affairs.

The builder's Ltd Company status is showing as 'Active — Active proposal to strike off' on the Companies House web site.
Companies house info also states that 'Compulsory strike-off action has been suspended against the company' - I suspect by HMRC?
Companies House have accepted my request to prevent the company from being dissolved until mid November 2019 or until my legal action is complete.
The company was formed in Jan 2017 and has never submitted any accounts.Their accounts and confirmation statement are overdue since November 2018.

I have bank statements from the builder from March-April 2018 showing payments from me being paid into his ltd company. During this 4 week period there was also a cash withdrawal of around £3200.
Given that no accounts have been submitted, would HMRC be interested in investigating him if I were to make this information available to them?
I ask because if there is a prospect of HMRC taking interest then I can use this as leverage to try and 'persuade' him to pay up (for his shoddy work which I then had to have corrected).

Will be glad to provide more info if needed.

robbob
Posts:3228
Joined:Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:01 pm

Re: HMRC interest in Company not declaring income?

Postby robbob » Wed May 29, 2019 8:06 am

There is no evidence that the individual has done anything wrong as far as hmrc is concerned.

If the business was loss making (that could be after reasonable salary is included for director) and the director wasn't willing to fund the business - they may well have simply advised hmrc of start and end date and that there are no funds to pay to submit accounts computations - they may well have submitted accounts and computations to hmrc only unless you know otherwise - or reasonable evidence the business was loss making which would probably suffice for hmrc if company doesn't have funds for formal set of accounts.

The individual would be more in hot water for trading whilst knowing the business was insolvent or if they didn't make clear that it was a limited company you were engaging. Proving a business is knowingly trading insolvent is the hard bit - but if a builder took multiple deposits and withdrew those funds for anything other than reasonable salary in the knowledge they couldn't fulfill orders there may be a case - again its unlikely hmrc / insolvency service will do much if its just one complaint - but who knows.

I wouldn't disagree with your logic though the threat of reporting may scare the individual.

really the law should be changed so directors have some basic reporting obligation to make to the insolvency service when a company ceases and doesn't formally liquidate - stating basic summary of financial position IF there are any liabilities o/s. Make this public and at least the shysters out there have some obligation rather than being able to say nothing or company has no funds end of.


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