A Shropshire director, who hijacked other companies’ VAT numbers as part of an attempted £125,000 fraud, has been jailed for two years following an HMRC investigation
The specialist HMRC south west VAT fraud repayment taskforce looked at returns supplied by business consultant Michael Bolton in relation to three companies to which he was connected.
These included MB Consulting, where Bolton was the sole director and the company was never registered for VAT and Bolton Capital Structures Ltd, where he was the sole director and the company registered for VAT at the end of 2013. Both these companies were registered to London addresses.
In addition, Bolton was a co-director Clayton Euro Risk Ltd (CER), registered in Bristol, until 31 October 2014. The company employed Bolton as a consultant and was not aware of the fake VAT numbers used in this fraud.
The taskforce established that Bolton had kept the VAT he had charged CER, even though both his firms were not VAT registered. The invoices raised by Bolton’s companies showed separate VAT registration numbers for each firm, but both of these numbers had been copied from other genuine businesses known to Bolton.
In an attempt to disguise the fraud Bolton registered one of his companies for VAT in December 2013. The registration was only backdated to July 2013 but he declared and paid HMRC £8,000 of VAT which reduced the value of the fraud to £125,340.
Bolton did not attend his trial. at Exeter Crown Court and was found guilty and sentenced in his absence to being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of VAT between May 2009 and November 2013. He has been given a two year prison sentence.
Colin Spinks, assistant director, fraud investigation service, HMRC, said: ‘This was deliberate attempt to defraud the public purse by Bolton. He chose to pocket the VAT he charged on invoices using different company identities.
‘Our investigations unravelled the invoice trail and cloned VAT numbers he used to steal public funds. Today he has been paid back for his dishonesty with a jail sentence.’
HMRC said the south west England and south Wales VAT fraud repayment taskforce has brought in over £10m, since it was launched in November 2013.
