back to article Tax-swerving IT director disqualified for 8 years

Anthony Hodges, a Basingstoke-based IT consultant, has been barred from acting as a company director for eight years due to mischief undertaken as his company went into liquidation. Investigating the demise of management consultancy Hodges & Coley, of which Hodges was the sole director, the Insolvency Service said it had …

  1. Stevie

    Bah!

    No, this sort of massive tax avoidance on steroids is ok. That nice Mr Trump says so.

    One cannot deny facts like that.

    1. Brandon 2
      Coat

      Re: Bah!

      Wrong

      1. Aladdin Sane

        Re: Bah!

        I think if American politics has taught us anything, it's that you can deny whichever facts you want, and people will still say they'll vote for you.

  2. Aladdin Sane
    Devil

    Where's the BOFH when you need him?

    Cattle prod, shovel, roll of carpet and lye.

    Happy days.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Investiators ?

    Is that a new word to described aggrieved investors looking into where their money has vanished to ?

    1. Fungus Bob

      They're what keep the bi-directional Tremmy pipes from farbelizing.

  4. Pen-y-gors

    Confused

    Must have thought he was Facebook or Starbucks

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yeah right

    "Neglect of tax affairs is not a victimless action as it deprives the taxpayer of the funds needed to operate public services,"

    Unless you are making Billions of $$, and can afford good tax dodging lawyers, to pay virtually fuck all tax

    Citation - see:

    Facebook

    Starbucks

    Google.....

    1. oldcoder

      Re: Yeah right

      Shouldn't leave out Microsoft - the biggest one.

      Then there is Oracle, HP, IBM, Lenovo, ...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Yeah right

        Although not Apple. They pay their taxes, right?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Yeah right

          According to the Irish they do indeed. Although perhaps best not mention the EU.

  6. Ralph B

    And yet ...

    And yet Philip Green is still allowed to be chairman of the Arcadia Group despite paying his family and himself massive dividends whilst driving BHS into bankruptcy. I guess he must have invited the Right People to his lavish parties.

    1. DavCrav

      Re: And yet ...

      "And yet Philip Green is still allowed to be chairman of the Arcadia Group despite paying his family and himself massive dividends whilst driving BHS into bankruptcy. I guess he must have invited the Right People to his lavish parties."

      Did he do it while insolvent? No. So he cannot be done for trading while insolvent. Note that he sold BHS as a going concern, and also wrote off more in loans and the price he paid for the company than he made out of it in dividends. The pension problems are primarily the fault of low interest rates, and are replicated all over the world: the BHS deficit is significantly wider now than it was when the company went into liquidation, for example. But let's not let a few facts get in the way of a rant about billionaires.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Now all he has to do is use a family member for directorships and he has pocketed the money anyway. I'm just surprised he didn't get a slap on the wrist and get told he was a very naughty boy as a deterrent for others thinking of doing the same thing in the future.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      It's ALWAYS about knowing the right people or knowing yer place, innit?

    2. kain preacher

      his sin was not paying taxes.

  8. wolfetone Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    ""Neglect of tax affairs is not a victimless action as it deprives the taxpayer of the funds needed to operate public services," added Clarke."

    Yeah, the public services really need the £191,000 he didn't pay compared to billions that aren't paid every year by big business.

    1. adam payne

      £191,000 is still £191,000 that he owes and should be made to pay.

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        "£191,000 is still £191,000 that he owes and should be made to pay."

        I never said he shouldn't pay it. What I'm implying is that HMRC are going for the low hanging fruit instead of the big businesses that have been getting away for it for longer, for more money.

        1. phuzz Silver badge

          £191,000 in recovered taxes is probably enough to cover the time/wages it took them to investigate and get the money back, so worth it I guess.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          That wasn't low hanging fruit, he was simply taking the piss. Paid 3k in tax and 420k to himself? FFS, he's lucky not to be in prison. As a former contractor, you push the tax code but only so far. The harder you push it the higher your head is above the parapet. He had the flagpole up his arse he went that hard at it.

    2. Captain DaFt

      There's his problem right there:

      "Yeah, the public services really need the £191,000 he didn't pay compared to billions that aren't paid every year by big business."

      He didn't steal enough to be "too big to fail".

  9. ecofeco Silver badge

    So he thought he was in America?

    How very American of him.

  10. 2Fat2Bald

    Meh

    The unspoken truth with big business not paying tax is that it's reported pretty vaguely by the media. Often they say things like "XXXX paid only £3000 this year in Corporation tax". - which begs the question "Yes - but what other taxes did they pay?". It may be that Corporation Tax isn't the appropriate tax for them to pay, because they're paying the money elsewhere for a variety of reasons.

    It could also be that they're not making massive profits. For example, if a business is expanding and ploughing most of it's profit back into to expansion it may actually make very small profits year-on-year, despite the apparent value of the enterprise continuing to increase. Similarly if it's investing money in other businesses, or paying off loans or a variety of other things it may not appear to make much actual cash or may not pay much in particular taxes, choosing or needing to pay it elsewhere instead.

    Don't misunderstand me - it's highly likely that a lot of businesses are avoiding paying tax and, possibly, the rules need to be tightened. But the rules are what they are and if people are taking advantage of them to avoid handing over money, that's on the government not the people doing it. UNLESS they're breaking the rules.

    Perhaps hard to believe, but I think the media are sensationalising this somewhat.

    1. Alien8n

      Re: Meh

      Thinking about it I'm pretty sure the £5Bn company (value shortly after IPO when their shares hit £50 a share, not at the £1.61 a share my options were priced at or the 50p a share when my options became sellable) I used to work for paid nothing in corporation tax. Something to do with the fact that during it's entire lifespan (before dumping the UK for the US) the company rather than making a profit was burning through about £25Mn a quarter

  11. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    ive tried googling it, but cant get to the bottom of it

    "Corporation Tax is a tax that limited companies, and some other organisations like clubs and societies, must pay to HMRC on their profits"

    Why does a company have a profit? Surely any money in its bank account is either going to be used for company expenses, and any extra money will be being divvied up among the owners of the company - who will then pay income tax on it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ive tried googling it, but cant get to the bottom of it

      Dividends (the divvy up) is a disbursement of post-tax profits. If your company made money above costs then the man wants to clip the ticket. After that, depending on what you do with the retained profit, he may get to clip it again (VAT on purchase that cannot be passed on), and again (dividends -> income tax), and again (VAT on purchases from distributed dividends) etc.

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