Boss in £150,000 tax fiddle

RECRUITMENT COMPANY OWNER JAILED SUBMITTED FALSE VAT FORMS

THE owner of a recruitment agency cheated HMRC out of more than £150,000.

Richard Alderson, from Huddersfield, submitted 69 false VAT forms for his limited company Brooke and Mae Employment totalling just under £120,000. He also submitted false income tax returns for the company totalling more than £35,000.

Leeds Crown Court heard he carried out the deception between 2011 and 2015.

Alderson, 43, of Lightridge Road, Fixby, was jailed for two years and three months after pleading guilty to two counts of the common law offence of cheating the public revenue.

He was also banned from being a company director for five years.

The court was told Alderson was charged in December 2019.

Prosecutor Christopher Stables said the company was previously known as Real Logistic Solutions Ltd and was incorporated in December 2006, the same year the defendant married Gemma Alderson.

He said the defendant was the sole shareholder in the company, but the defendant ran it with his then-wife. They swapped roles as director and secretary a number of times.

In 2009, he was made subject to a company director disqualification due to his management of a previous company. In 2014, she left, the defendant became director again, appointed a third person as secretary and changed the name.

In 2016, a voluntary liquidator was appointed and the secretary resigned.

The following year, the company was dissolved following liquidation.

The prosecutor said Alderson’s exwife said in divorce papers that she had been director ‘in name only.’

Alderson has three previous convictions for four offences. He was subject to a suspended prison sentence for controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship at the time of the sentencing hearing.

Martin Taylor, mitigating, urged Recorder Mark McKone to suspend the prison sentence.

He said Alderson was diagnosed with major anxiety and depression after finding out his wife cheated on him.

He said Alderson has a newborn daughter, as well as adult twin daughters, and his father has motor neurone disease. He said his new partner suspects she has post-natal depression.