A Welsh fish and chip shop owner has been issued a ban for five years from the Insolvency Service after failing to declare £459,522 in VAT over the course of five years
Matthew Antone Williams, 39, was the director of Maw Catering Services Limited which traded as The Crispy Cod in Tonyrefail, Wales. Maw Catering Services was incorporated in 2007 and registered for VAT in April 2008, and Williams was appointed as a director in April 2010.
HMRC launched an investigation into the company in 2017 and visited the premises in April of that year to obtain the sales records for a four-month period from the shop’s point of sale register (PoS).
The point of sale register revealed that the company had not distinguished the difference between the hot and cold food sales. Williams had not declared that the food he was serving was hot which meant that he had failed to declare around £2,000 of VAT a week from between January 2012 and July 2017.
HMRC then raised assessments to cover underdeclared tax totalling £459,522 over the five years. Maw Catering Services was contacted by HMRC in December 2017 to be made aware of the VAT that the company owed.
Maw Catering services went into voluntary liquidation on 31 July 2019 and at the point of liquidation the company had not paid off any of the VAT debt that was owed in this period.
According to the liquidator’s statement of receipts and payments to July 2020 published in October 2020, HMRC was shown to be owed £596,288.22.
The Insolvency Service began its procedure for the disqualification of Williams on 29 June 2021 and on 20 July 2021, it issued the five-year director ban to Williams which prevents him from being a company director until 2026.
During the proceedings, Williams had stated that he was ‘devastated’ and that he had bit off more than he could chew and was sorry. Williams also stated that he had ‘made a mistake’ regarding the undeclared VAT.
