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Restaurant director disqualified for 11 years for suppression of cash takings (30 March 2016)

Date: 30/03/2016
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Restaurant director disqualified for 11 years for suppression of cash takings

A Hertfordshire-based restaurateur has been disqualified for a period of 11 years, for deliberately failing to ensure that the company had properly and accurately accounted for VAT and corporation tax.

Mrs Sakine Ulas, 35 – a director of Milox Limited, trading as Divan Restaurant and based in Borehamwood – was found to have failed to record the correct takings at the Turkish restaurant to her accountant.

Milox Limited was incorporated on 17 June 2008 and was placed into liquidation on 15 May 2014.

At liquidation, the company was stated as owing in excess of £220,000 to HMRC in relation to arrears of VAT, PAYE & National Insurance Contributions and Corporation Tax.

After an HMRC investigation, Ulas confirmed she had not recorded and declared to HMRC all the cash takings, totalling up to £1,500 per week.

She further declared that she had not declared the correct takings to her accountant – and that she had knowingly signed off the company’s annual accounts which understated the correct turnover.

Ulas received a personal penalty by HMRC for deliberate tax evasion.

The disqualification, from 29 March, means that Ulas has given an Undertaking to the Secretary of Sate to not be a director of a company, whether directly or indirectly, or be involved in the management of a company in any way for the duration of her disqualification.

A chief investigator with the Insolvency Service, Mark Bruce, said:

“The period of this disqualification sends a clear message to other company directors that fraud of any kind will not be tolerated.

“Public services are funded by the correct amount of taxes being paid – by not declaring and paying the correct amount of taxes, Mrs Ulas has ultimately deprived the public from receiving the services they deserve.

“In order to protect the public, the Insolvency Service therefore will not hesitate to remove from the business environment, directors who behave in this way.

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