Husband not been paying tax for years

[Shitsinthepost77]

I'm so worried and scared. Over a year ago two debt collectors came to our door and handed me a letter addressed to my husband. I opened it and it said we owed approx £500k to the taxman. I nearly collapsed.

When my husband came home I confronted him and he basically broke down saying he hadn't been paying tax on his Ltd company for about 5 years. He'd liquidised his company without my knowledge and taken me off as Company Secretary presumably so I wouldn't find out and to extricate me from any financial liability. We had to get a tax lawyer to negotiate on our behalf with the debt collectors and after many months of wrangling, my husband told me it was £64k we owed which we could put our savings towards and also set up a direct debit and pay the rest monthly.

Fast forward a year, I had two debt collectors standing at my front door. It turns out my husband has been lying about the amount owed...it's in actual fact £150k. I'm horrified, my heart's racing as I'm writing this. He told me over the phone he'd used £30k of our son's trust fund money towards it. He told me he's incapable of saying no to me (?!) and he knows he's got emotional problems.

I don't understand any of this...I'm in my 50s, yes, I like nice things (who doesn't) but never overspent in terms of the money that's in our account and was surplus after all bills are paid. He didn't come home last night, he's too ashamed and embarrassed and keeps telling me he's no good and I deserve better. I've been with this man for over 30 years and can't imagine life without him, although I massively resent him at this point.

I found out he'd taken his watch (a present for his 50th) to a pawnbroker to get a £1,500 per loan against the watch. He said it was to pay off the rest owed to the tax lawyer. I asked (shouted) why the hell did he not come to me as I'd managed to put some money aside. Again, he was too embarrassed and said he just wanted it sorted and out the way. I ended up giving him over £2k to get the watch back.

I'm worried sick. How on earth do I deal with this without knowing whether he's lying or not? I don't have access to his business account because I'm not company secretary. I have access to everything else (I think?).

I'm mostly disgusted at my son's trust fund. He's 21, and it was meant to be for a down payment on a flat at some point. Now there's nothing. My son's now aware of this and thinks I should leave his dad as he can't be trusted. What do you think? Any advice would be extremely welcome.

I would get divorced.

You are in debt - You dont work so your life is one big debt because you don’t contribute - SAHP to a 21 year old? Really?

You need to get a job!

You need to take control of the finances.

Sell everything not tied down.

Porsche? You can afford it.

Dear God, I'm no wilting lily but I've clearly been sailing along blithely...he knows how outspoken i am. That's why he'll be shitting it.

I don't understand how you can be removed as the company secretary without some formal notification or signing.

Have you never looked at your own entry on Companies House? If you really were a CS your name, DOB etc would al be there as would updates on your resignation.

Do you know CH exists?

Is he still listed as a limited company, or is he now a sole trader? This is very important.

I’ll go against the grain.

This doesn’t seem too difficult to solve. I wouldn’t despair op.

Sell your large house, downsize to a 3 bed estate type house. Swap your Porsche for a Skoda. I live in an estate house and drive a Skoda and I love my house and car. Both are lovely.

with the proceeds of the house sale, pay the tax man, give your son a flat deposit and get any shortfall on a mortgage.

Don’t bin your husband if you otherwise love him. Agree with him that he will only spend cash or whatever. Or only spend on one car that you monitor.

Highly likely he would’ve been banned although that does take time, it usually would’ve been done by now.

why is it very important?

The money can be sorted. It will be painful, but it's totally doable - you have assets you can change to smaller/cheaper versions and raise the money that way.

The lying and stealing however - that's what would break me.

What a mess.
Also sad that after 30 years of being together, the communication and insight is very poor.
He has landed in the shit.

If he's still a limited company, they cannot take personal assets to pay the debt. I doubt very much (as a PP said, he's most likely been banned) this is the case. If they're knocking on your door, it's most likely he is personally responsible for the debt.

My husband (as far as I was aware) paid tax via his business account which i don't have access to. Yes, I should have pushed to see this but I genuinely (until a year ago) thought anything was amiss.

As the Company Secretary you are liable for checking all of this and are as responsible as he was.

A CS has to make sure all the tax/ finances are in order. You would/should have had access to the accounts- that was YOUR JOB as CS.

In a small limited company, the company secretary primarily manages statutory and administrative duties on behalf of the directors, ensuring compliance with legal requirements. Key responsibilities include maintaining company records, filing necessary documents with Companies House (like annual confirmation statements), and organizing board and shareholder meetings. They also act as a point of contact, handle share transfers, and can sign legal documents on behalf of the company.

Key Responsibilities
Statutory Records:
Maintaining registers of directors, shareholders, and meeting minutes.

Companies House Filings:
Submitting the annual confirmation statement, updating details of changes to the company, and ensuring accurate information is filed on time.

Meeting Management:
Organizing director and shareholder meetings, preparing agendas, and recording minutes.

Share Management:
Managing share transfers, issuing new share certificates, and acting as the primary contact for shareholding matters.

Legal & Administrative Support:
Signing legal and financial documents, advising directors on legal and statutory requirements, and handling various other administrative tasks.

Did you ever actually do anything in that role?

None of this makes sense.

Sounda like you all had a great run at it, spending large amounts of money, hubb financing it, you thinking everything is in order and spending on this and that. But really the lifestyle was bigger than the income. Fortunately you have assets and can downsize, pay everything back and live a life more in line with your actual affordability. Admitting you arent as well off as you thought you were and coming to terms with that will be a blow to yours and your husbands ego. But there is only so long you can bury your head in the sand.
It's just time to face reality!

If you are two people plus a single 21 year old living in an 8 bedroom house you can very easily solve this. Sell the house, Buy a 3 bed house outright and use the excess to pay off your debts. Get rid of the Porsche as well. I can't believe you were thinking of going to your sister or elderly parents to bail you out. You easily have the assets to bail yourselves out. Take responsibility, and stop living like you are Porsche and champagne earners when in reality you are VW Golf and prosecco earners.

I agree - far too many holes in the story for this to be true.

No -he is personally responsible for the debt. That’s clear. He’s had a payment plan for years!

he’s no longer a director as the company was liquidated some time ago

Sole traders are personally liable for any debt. If its a limited company the liability is limited.

I think you’re being naive. Someone sticking their wife on CH as co sec is very normal. As I said, often your accountant goes on- they’re not taking minutes at the board meeting 😂

no one checks or enforces that co secs are doing this, I doubt most do.

This has all been covered previously in the thread and it’s also clear what the situation with OPs husband was

There’s no detail here - if he’s not been paying corporation tax he would be barred from winding the company up and there would be a risk of worse consequences if the money isn’t paid

or is it VAT or employment taxes? Has he been paying the OP when she hasn’t actually done anything

he hasn’t forgotten to pay tax. This is tax evasion of the stupidest kind and it would be far better for him to accept he has to pay it rather than go down the ‘it’s a limited company’ route

i do wonder what your accountants have been doing and how long they’ve been involved

Nope, you've got that very wrong. I never said that nor would I consider it.

No but it happened to my ex husband

Your accountant doesn’t ensure you pay the tax. They can help you calculate it.

Op said it’s income tax but I wondered if it’s VAT too. Although they probably would’ve made him bankrupt by now 😭

No agreed the accountants aren’t responsible but I’m surprised they didn’t pick it up earlier. No accountant wants to be connected with tax evasion

I'm not sure OP has full story so which tax it is could be wrong

in terms of the company - HMRC can block liquidation so it may still exist

ETA the VAT man is definitely the most brutal!!

I thought the same but didn’t want to say this. I think it’s now it won’t pay within a time limit to stop people taking out insurance and then ending their life.

You said,
"But there's no way we can pay this off without remortgaging. Savings are all gone. I can't turn to family. My elderly mum needs her savings and my sister has always appeared to be resentful of me it would appear."

So it looks like you have considered and ruled them out. I am deeply skeptical that you didn't also consider that 3 people do not need an 8 bed house....the only option is to remortgage? Any numpty can see you have options.

So all in all you owe the mortgage company 100k and HMRC 150k and your son 30k

your DH earns 130k

you claim to have an 8 bed house worth 400k. Is that true? Perhaps get an estate agent round

so you need to release equity and seriously tighten your belts

you are actually in an extremely fortunate position because you do actually have the money

does he have a pension? Do you?

How? An accountant can’t see into your bank account to see if you’ve paid. If they aren’t authorised as your agent they can’t talk to HMRC. They have no idea whether you’ve paid or not.

accountants aren’t associated with evasion unless they’re actually involved. Every high street accountant has a % of clients who don’t pay their tax