VAT offences cost firm £5,527
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/Foleshill, Coventry-based Fleetmarket and its principal director Michael William Luke have been ordered to pay fines, costs and back duty totalling £5,527.15 by Coventry Magistrates.
The company and Luke each pleaded guilty to eight breaches of the Value Added Tax Act. The company also pleaded guilty to 21 offences of using vehicles without excise licences and without insurance.
For HM Customs & Excise, Anthony Hartley said that Luke had been asked for a surety for VAT payments of £22,500 after his four previous firms had gone under, in most cases owing VAT. He had ignored warnings not to trade without a surety.
The 16 VAT charges were sample charges of the offences committed by Luke and the company in trading without paying the surety, said Hartley.
Prosecuting for the Department of Transport, Nicola Purchase said that extensive enquiries started last year when Luke was involved in a company called Weirfleet. That company amalgamated with Eastfreight but was later wound up. The new company, Fleetmarket, had 11 vehicles; only 10 were properly insured and most were not taxed.
Luke, of Spring Road, Barnacle, said he had not paid the VAT surety as he had not had the money. Fleetmarket had now stopped trading and he had been left with a bank overdraft of £16,000. The company had been badly managed, he said.
The company and Luke were fined a total of £2,850 and ordered to pay £.250 prosecution costs and back duty of £2,427.15.