A businessman, who provided bus services for vulnerable people, has been jailed for two and a half years following a £1m tax fraud
James Taylor, 68, from Luton deliberately put nine companies into liquidation to avoid paying PAYE and VAT that was due to HMRC.
When a company was shut down, Taylor put the money owed to HMRC into his own accounts before going on to set up a new one.
He would use the same name, Taylors Transport Services, each time so that local authorities remained unaware of the scam.
HMRC investigators discovered the fraud in 2013 and Taylor pleaded guilty to the fraudulent evasion of VAT and income tax at an earlier hearing.
He was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment at Luton Crown Court on 5 August 2016.
Taylor used the stolen money to fund a holiday home in Devon, rent various sports cars and to pay off his mortgage.
Confiscation proceedings to recover the proceeds of his crime will follow.
Paul Barton, assistant director of the fraud investigation service at HMRC, said: ‘Taylor believed he was being clever by pocketing the £1m rather than paying it over to fund the UK’s vital public services.
‘His scam gave him an unfair advantage over his honest competitors and he is paying the price with a prison sentence. We will now look to strip him of the proceeds of his criminal activity. So his affluent lifestyle of nice cars, houses and holidays, which he funded through this fraud, is well and truly over.’
