The off-licence boss who fiddled his taxes to the tune of £250,000

Stuart Kane, 38, who was the company director for Booze Booze Booze Ltd (BBB) was subject to an HMRC investigation after he failed to declare all his sales and submit accurate VAT returns, totalling a whopping £250,000.

Kane, of Leamington Road, Blackpool, was investigated after VAT returns submitted to HMRC for the quarters ending September 2013 to June 2016 fell significantly below the amount the company wanted to reclaim.

Officers from HMRC discovered Kane had been making hundreds of undeclared sales after finding a cash book at the premise, which recorded 'day' and 'night' sales.

The 'day' sales had been declared, whereas the 'night' sales had not. 

Between 2013 and 2016, Kane, who ran BBB in Blackpool, declared VAT liabilities (money owed to the taxman) of £14,435.

Yet for the same period of time, he submitted a VAT claim (money owed to him from the taxman) for £21,713 - a difference of minus £7,000.

In December 2015 HMRC began an investigation into BBB’s reported VAT reclaims, which demonstrated BBB had underdeclared its sales and VAT liabilities in two ways:

Between July 2013 and December 2015, BBB produced two Z-reports from the till each day, the first of which was used to declare sales and calculate BBB’s VAT liabilities, and the second of which recorded sales which were not declared.

On September 15 2016 HMRC officers seized a cashbook from the trading premises of BBB.

The cashbook recorded ‘day’ and ‘night’ sales - the ‘day’ sales corresponded with the declared Z-reports and the ‘night’ sales corresponded with the undeclared Z-reports.

Following the commencement of HMRC’s investigation, between December 2015 and September 2016 BBB produced a single daily Z-report, but, the ‘refund’ function of the businesses till was used to remove sales from the daily Z-report.

In a letter dated June 27 2017, HMRC raised assessments for BBB’s undeclared VAT liabilities totalling £89,326 for all quarters ending September 2013 to June 2016 inclusive.

HMRC then revised BBB’s profits in line with the undeclared sales, and found Kane also owed corporation tax totalling £102,125.

A final claim submitted by HMRC upon the liquidation of Booze Booze Booze was made for £254,895, of which the £102,125 was claimed in respect of unpaid corporation tax, £91,736 was claimed in respect of unpaid VAT, including surcharges and interest, and £51,062 was claimed in respect of penalties.

Booze Booze Booze was wound up by the insolvency service but the entirety of HMRC’s claim remains unpaid.

Kane's disqualification order began on June 30 and will run until June 2029.