A company boss who fraudulently claimed more than £100,000 from a Construction Industry Scheme has been banned from being a director for 10 years.

Penka Vasileva, of Travis Street, Burnley, caused Burnley-based Penka Services Ltd to fraudulently claim a Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) payment of £111,527 from HM Revenue and Customs for the tax period ending February 5, 2020.

The CIS allows contractors to deduct money from a subcontractor’s payments to pass it directly to HMRC, which then count as advance payments towards the subcontractor’s tax and National Insurance.

On July 31, 2019, Penka Services Ltd registered under the CIS with HMRC as both a contractor and a sub-contractor.

Penka Services Ltd then submitted a CIS repayment claim to HMRC relating to the period ending February 5, 2020, based on payments allegedly received from a third party contractor company – listed by the Insolvency Service as Company X.

This resulted in Penka Services Ltd receiving a payment of £111,527.

This six-figure sum was then paid into a further third-party contractor’s bank account - names as Company Y.

During a subsequent investigation into Penka Services Ltd’s CIS claim, HMRC reviewed the bank statements of Company X and they were unable to trace any payments made by them to Penka Services Ltd.

HMRC also reviewed the bank statements of Company Y, and they were unable to trace any payments received from Company X.

It was then found that Company X entered liquidation on December 20, 2019.

As a result of their investigation, HMRC obtained an order to have Company Y’s bank account frozen on July 14, 2020.

HMRC subsequently confirmed that following a forfeiture application, they received the funds that were held in the frozen bank account despite Bulgarian national Ms Vasileva, 41, failing to deliver up any books and records to support the CIS claim made.

The 10-year banning order came into effect on August 3.