Husband not been paying tax for years

Your relationship with your son is the most important thing to protect. Your husband has stolen from him. Probably breaking laws in the process given its a trust fund.

As company secretary were you also taking dividends? If so was full tax paid on these? If therr has been fraudulent activity in tbe business you may be held equally responsible - taking you off after this has happened won't protect you. You need a good lawyer.

Where is his accountant in all this?

Is it just income tax or did he take dividends and owe tax on that? What about VAT and corporation tax?

I couldn't stay with someone like this, he's a liar and.a thief.

So many stay-at-home women on MN who find themselves in a predicament like you OP say that they’re “lucky” or “fortunate” not to have needed to work.

Do you see how that is not the case at all? How your isolation, financial inactivity and almost child-like dependency on another adult are at the root of why you are now struggling to know what to do. Because you have very little in the way of options.

It would be a good idea to take the bull by the horns and find out what the full picture is, right now. Especially with regard to any tax liability on your part or any charge on your property.

Then get a job and assert your independence. Start making decisions from a position of a proper grown up!

There will be jobs out there - what about in local schools? What about doing a training course first as a mature student? Become a teaching assistant or work with young children - something like that? You need to become more independent in this situation because he sounds a bloody nightmare financially and you are reliant upon him. I wouldn't want to be with him.

Sell the house and start your own life.

How did your DH ever sleep all these years knowing that he paid no tax ?

When I set up a small business, I have always paid my taxes

It is not difficult to pay taxes

The question is why ?

How much tax does his company actually owe now, did he not have an accountant or submit earnings for this long. If the debt is in his companies name surely it's all his responsibility to pay off. Can you sell the house, split it two ways and you move out and divorce, let him pay off his debt from the house sale. Don't give him any more money. Has he declared himself bankrupt now.

Your son is right, and sever all financial connection with him so they don't come after you. Make sure your name is nowhere connected with his business, bank accounts etc.

I married a man who did this.

We met when I was 19 and got engaged. Split at 22 b/c of prostitution use and him keeping getting banks frozen due to not paying tax. He wanted kids and I said there was no way I was having kids with someone who could end up jailed for tax evasion.

We had an on/off thing until we finally got back together just before my 25th birthday off the back of me telling him he had sorted a payment plan for the back tax, iirc he claimed it was 100k.

5 months after the wedding he vanished for 6 days. Returned: I lied to you about sorting the tax because I knew you wouldn't get back with me.

Cue apparent mental health issues and alcoholism. Ultimately I left him for not sorting the tax issue and being untrustworthy. He was the sort of man who tried to get away with anything he thought he could. When I was 19 I was mortified when he forced us to do a runner from serviced accommodation we were renting on a weekly basis. That attitude was never going to change.

He died 8 years after I left him of an accidental overdose. Idk whether drugs or MH meds but my eyes once popped out of my head when he offered me some coke when he was out of his mind drunk. By then I had known him for 8 years.

Loved earning huge amounts of money (2k a week net in 2000), loved spending it, thought he was better than everyone and could just get away with being a bloody bandit.

What else does your DH think he can get away with?

I could never, ever get past a 300k lie.

Edit: the only way I could get him out in the end was to tell him I had photocopied his certificates of incorporation, bank statements and birth certificate and was going to send them to the tax man.

He got NASTY when he thought he was going to lose everything, and at that time he had almost nothing to lose because he owned almost nothing.

Be warned. Protect yourself.

OP I'm sure you'd be able to get a job in your local supermarket.

Aldi pay very well I've heard.

As long as no money is going towards prostitutes or a hidden gambling addiction, I think you need to sort this out together. Don't take his word for it going forward, always ask to see the paperwork. You've been living the life of riley at his expense and now that you've found out that your family is heading south financially , I don't think that you should split and run. I think that would make you the female equivalent of what mumsnet commonly calls a "cocklodger". Maybe try and get into work if you can to try and maintain some independence without trying to scrounge every last penny out of him if you're planning on leaving him. You need to take some responsibility for this as an adult. I mean, you're not working and you just ask "are we okay financially?"he says "Yes" and you carry on spending his money on the nice things you want?!

Whilst the deceit sits wholly with your DH, you do bear some responsibility if you were listed as company secretary before the business was liquidated. If you knew his salary was £130k then you should have realised that would only go so far in terms of providing for this lifestyle you say you've become accustomed to especially as it was the sole household income, blissful ignorance perhaps?

You need proper legal advice because this is a big mess that won’t just go away – you need to start taking some responsibility and absolutely do not ever take your DH’s word when it comes to finances ever again.

A family member experienced a very similar scenario due to online gambling addiction. Again because of wilful ignorance and they ended up losing everything.

You don't know for sure that they will take the house. My understanding is that HMRC can't take your house for a Tax Debt in most circumstances

not for this amount. Hmrc usually tries to work with people for amounts less than 1m

You realise if he doesn’t pay they’ll take the house and he could go to prison.

And he’s a total liar who jeopardised you and your son’s future to piss half a million quid up the wall (if this is what he owed this is how much he spent on other stuff…

It’s a LTD company so the liability is limited to whatever has been agreed when he set it up. But if you want what he owes on the company to be taken from his share of any divorce settlement you should divorce him asap.

I agree but it does happen in some cases
Some people seem to think that having a LTD company means the Directors have no liability but its not always the case. I thought so too until it happeened to someone close to me

He didn't remove you as company secretary to protect you, he removed you to hide everything.

He sounds utterly incapable of telling the truth and I bet the real debt is much much higher. Time to get back into the company, and see what is actually going on.

Someone has to be the adult here and it's clearly not him. I'd also seriously think about leaving him as quite honestly the trust is gone

This is true. Banks will want to see the applicants tax statement. I had to produce these last time I remortgaged.

@Shitsinthepost77I am so sorry this is happening, I’ve been in almost exactly the same situation and it is horrific, terrifying and just unbelievable.

There are a couple of options - he uses savings to pay the debt OR he pre-packs the Ltd company and starts again. He’d need to see an insolvency practitioner to do this and there are some costs involved but it wipes out the HMRC debt. I fully understand the moral implications of this, but it’s an option.

With regards to your relationship, he’s lied and then lied and then lied some more. Then tried to blame you for his dishonesty. He spent money that wasn’t his. It is too easy with a Ltd company - for example, you charge the client VAT, they pay you and then each quarter you pay that money to HMRC. Unfortunately too many people use the money to keep the business afloat during this time and then don’t have it to pay HMRC and on and on it goes.

When this happened in my life we ended up divorced because I just couldn’t stand the deceit and then the blaming me (“I didn’t want to worry you” and “I wanted us to have nice things/holidays etc” and “you bought too many things/spent too much”)

I think it would be good to sort the financials of the Ltd company first and maybe he should quit and get a PAYE job if he can’t run the business properly. Not a criticism, it’s a tough environment.

Once that HUGE worry and stress is dealt with you need to decide what you want going forward. He’s lied about things that could have seen your house repossessed and will eat in to your savings. Only you know if you can continue with the relationship knowing it could happen - very easily - again and again.

Look after yourself and try not to imagine the worst case re the tax bill. HMRC can play nicely but their letters are terrifying as are debt collectors. Debt collectors coming to the house suggest a different problem because a Ltd company is its own entity and your personal assets can’t be seized. My guess is he has unpaid debts in his own name too (and if you’re married you’re ’jointly and severally liable’ so you can also be chased).

Eh, I could switch off my emotions if my husband stole 30k from our child, lied for years and didn’t pay his taxes, totally screwing us both over for life.

Well, assuming you don't want to leave him I think you have to have full disclosure.

Get yourselves a financial advisor and lay it all out and then come up with a strategy, ensure you have visibility of all financials (logins to all the accounts for mortgage, his business, tax etc)

Each month sit down and review where you are. Everything - credit cards, bank accounts, mortgage etc. Do a proper budget with incomings and outgoings, you be in charge of this obv as your dh can't be trusted.

You should be able to get a mortgage at your age, these days it isn't nearly as strict on age as it used to be. That would likely be your best bet to consolidate the debt at the lowest rate. Once it's all restructured then get a job, any job, to help pay the mortgage off.

Another option would be downsizing or moving to a cheaper area which would give you a clean slate.

And I would be saying if this happens again, that is it. He sounds very juvenile and like he has his fingers in his ears lalala it won't catch up with me sort of thing. He needs to grow up and you need to grow a pair!

It’s a bit unclear to be honest as the 500k seemed to go down to 150k - but it’s not clear why. OP probably isn’t sure what he owes at this point either.

As they’re in their mid fifties and OP doesn’t work, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to remortgage - especially now he owes over 100k to the taxman!

I don't agree with this tbh. If I found out a man did this to me and my child, there would be no more feelings. Because the man I thought he was, he wasn't. That was also a lie.

You really do need to secure your own position. If you've not been working, have you checked your state pension forecast? Have you bought back empty years?

Being scared of the future is no excuse for not taking action. Sure, it's scary as hell, but ignoring it would be utterly foolhardy.

You cannot rely on your DH for anything. He's been lying to you for years and that's never going to change.