Parking firm boss in £460k tax evasion
FRAUDSTER JAILED AFTER 7-YEAR SCAM NETTED HIM THOUSANDS
THE boss of a ‘meet and greet’ airport parking firm has been jailed after cheating the taxman out of almost half a million pounds.
Brian Pearson, 57, was pocketing the income tax and National Insurance Contributions (NIC) for up to 60 of his employees for more than seven years.
Pearson ran MIA Secure Parking Ltd, a parking service based in Sharston, Wythenshawe, later renamed UK Premier Parking Ltd, which mainly looked after cars for passengers. It is not affiliated in any way to Manchester Airport.
Investigators from Revenue and Customs (HMRC) raided Pearson’s Wilmslow home and business addresses on Harling Road on the Sharston Industrial Estate in March 2015 seizing his business records, computers, payroll books, employee and financial documentation.
The payroll books were blank, but employee and other salary records showed that Pearson, who has previously been convicted for swindling customers, had been taking the tax and NIC from his employee’s pay.
Any firm which employs people using the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system is required to complete end-ofyear documentation showing how much each individual has been paid, gross and net, how much Income Tax has been deducted and how much National Insurance the employee has paid in addition to how much the employer has paid.
This is known as the P14 documentation and reflects the information provided to employees on a P60.
None of these PAYE deductions, £258,909 of income tax and £207,120.77 national insurance, had been paid to HMRC. Pearson was subsequently charged with tax evasion.
Initially, Pearson, of Hawthorne Avenue, Wilmslow claimed to be too ill to do the payroll in May this year in a Pearson hearing at Manchester Crown Court. He pleaded guilty to the offence and on Tuesday, October 10, was sentenced to three years and two months in prison by a judge.
In total Pearson had pocketed £466,029.77 between April 2008 and November 2015. Confiscation proceedings have now begun to recover the stolen funds.
Speaking after the hearing, Tony Capon, assistant director at the HMRC Fraud Investigation Service, said: “Pearson stole from the public and his staff. He knew exactly what his responsibilities were but choose to pocket the money instead of paying it over to HMRC.
“Stealing tax at the expense of honest taxpayers and businesses who play by the rules is not acceptable.
“We are determined to create a level playing field for all businesses in the UK by tackling fraud whatever the circumstances.”
It is not the first time Pearson has appeared before the courts.
He was prosecuted in 2011 for charging premium rates to keep cars in a high-security compound – then illegally storing them at an airport short stay for practically nothing.
He used a technique called ‘shuffling’ which involved a driver illegally obtaining an extra ticket when they entered an Airport car park and using it to remove a second vehicle – the holidaymakers’ car that should have been in a secure compound.
He was found to have conned more than £900 from customers and fleeced the airport of a total of £6,267 in unpaid car park fees. He narrowly avoided jail on that occasion, being sentenced to 250 hours unpaid work for fraud, and obtaining services dishonestly, at Minshull Street Crown Court.