100 BBC stars face huge bills for unpaid tax
SCORES of highly paid BBC stars are facing huge bills after a former regional news presenter lost a legal battle with the taxman.
Christa Ackroyd, 60, has been told she must pay £419,000 in what is the first judgment among a number of appeals involving TV celebrities.
More than 100 BBC employees who claimed to be self-employed to reduce their tax bills have been targeted by HMRC.
Former local newspaper journalist Ms Ackroyd was poached from rival ITV show Calendar in 2001 to front Look North in Yorkshire. She went on to become the highest paid regional presenter in the country, earning £163,233 a year plus bonuses.
Investigators found she was selling her talent to the BBC via her company Christa Ackroyd Media (CAM) Ltd.
She was paid more than the Prime Minister to co-present the half-hour nightly news show but was axed in 2013 after HMRC launched an inquiry into her tax affairs.
Mother-of-three Ms Ackroyd, a close friend of the late Countdown host Richard Whiteley, told investigators the decision to operate via a limited company had been at the insistence of the BBC and the terms of the arrangement had been agreed by her accountant. She believes she has been made a scapegoat by BBC chiefs after an internal inquiry into the corporation’s use of “freelancers”. Tax specialists say an individual earning £50,000 a year through a personal company can pay as little as £2,000 tax compared with the £13,000 bill an employee would face. Ruling against Ms Ackroyd, a tribunal said HMRC had never suggested she was a tax cheat or had acted dishonestly. HMRC argued that as an employee of CAM, the company was liable for income tax and national insurance payments while Ms Ackroyd claimed she was a self-employed contractor and her company had no further liability. Ruling in favour of HMRC, the tribunal said: “We do not criticise Ms Ackroyd. She took professional advice.” Ms Ackroyd, who runs a B&B with her husband Christopher, disputes the £419,000 bill, claiming it should be about £207,000. She now has 42 days to reach an agreement.