Husband not been paying tax for years

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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’d divorce him because he’s a proven repeated liar and has stolen from your child. Both are unforgivable.

I also don’t believe him and suspect he has an addiction or is still lying to you. I’m worried you may end up homeless.

‘He told me he's incapable of saying no to me (?!)’ that should make you FUMING. The thieving, lying disgusting man has the audacity to blame you? No. This isn’t some frivolous shopping or treating you to a trip or designer shoes (none of which is sounds you have) this is serious disgusting levels of debt he’s wracked up and lied about.

Don't take this the wrong way but 130k isn't really that much as a single household income. I earn slightly more and am overdrawn all the time at the moment because we just get carried away with activities for our children and holidays. It's definitely not Porsche territory. I think with the tax situation youd needed to be on a lot more before that kind of stuff is a thing.

I don’t know why posters are being so unkind of disbelieving. This is in no way an unusual situation. The OP is upset because she thought it was over and being dealt with and she has just found out it is not. Shes not being dramatic, she’s not saying she won’t sell her house. She’s just found out there is a problem she wasn’t fully aware of. It’s ok to be shocked and upset.

The first thing you need to do is calm down.

These knee jerk divorce reactions could leave you seriously worse off.

You both need to go through all of the financials together and come up with a solution.

Your DH earning £130k a year gives you a lot of room for manoeuvre to get this sorted out.

And, listen, bro - I'm sorry you got to that point, and glad you came through it.

How much was the OP spending though she says she never overspent which I take as she never went overdrawn but any surplus she happily spent (and 1500 a month on prescription drugs is a lot).

The way I read it @Tiswa was that originally the opiates were prescribed but then she bought them online on the 'black market', possibly from an overseas source, hence the cost.

Thank you 😊

If the debt is under his limited company, why doesnt he just wind it up and get a job?

That said the repeated lies and sneaky behavoiur are things I couldnt forgive. And then running away is pathetic

You can’t just run up debts in a limited company and wind them up because you spent it all. You would make it worse for yourself as you would face charges of fraud and/or tax evasion

It’s one hell of a mess. If you have equity in the house the obvious thing to do is sell up and use the money to clear the debt. Obviously sell the Porsche too. Depending on how much money is left you could return your son’s money and then buy a smaller house together, or split the money and go your separate ways. You are not responsible for this mess, he’s known all this time and has been lying by omission. However, now that you do know you have to accept that you cannot keep living as you are. Get the house on the market asap.

I was going to say this, I used to work in a school and a lot of people wanted jobs as TA’s but had no success, some of them gained TA qualifications but still couldn’t get a job as a TA.

Oh dear, honestly you need to be taking steps to protect your future fast. That is an incredible amount of money to owe the taxman and I can’t understand how that has accumulated on a high (ish) salary, it isn’t a massive salary by any means. There is clearly more to this than you know and sadly that is unsurprising, given all of the lies and lengthy form for deceit it is a given that you likely don’t know the half of what is going on. I’m not sure what you will gain from staying with him at all

What’s the obsession on mumsnet with cleaning businesses and teaching assistants or care jobs? I genuinely think some do get a weird buzz when the shit hits the fan for anyone who has ‘ever ‘ dared to have had any money - even if it wasn’t quite what he seemed .

I know a lady who also owed HMRC about 50k and from memory the LTD company was made bankrupt - if that is the correct phrase? She then set up again, although still going so I imagine all above board now.

Equally, a neighbour said how they hadn't paid tax on the first years earnings and only declared from the second year. She is self employed though not LTD but still, I would be fraught!

No advice OP, I hope you try to remain calm easier said than done I know.

@Laura95167bad advice. What makes you think this is a good solution?

It’s actual madness to think that a woman whose husband has managed to fuck up being in business so spectacularly would be able to start a cleaning business successfully. Popped down to Tesco’s buy some rubber gloves off you go
As for teaching assistance, there’s Qualified teachers doing teaching assistance roles because they can’t secure decent contracts for themselves.
Care jobs yeah absolutely. Every woman who spent her life getting her nails done having facials Pilates followed by a nice lunch. She’s just going to pivot straight into wiping some old man’s arse 🙄
Seemless process 🙄🙄

Its not advice at all.

Its a question followed by my opinion I couldnt forgive the lies, sneakiness and running away.

What planet are you on?

The one where that level of income results in a net income of £6700 a month for a family. Which is not Porsche territory, IMHO, given the cost of everything else.

@Hardhaton1 that’s a bit how I feel about it - I think it’s more likely OP should nip down to the FE college and pick up some decent PC skills and then look for jobs ( depending where she lives of course) in somewhere smart as a receptionist( doctors, vets, beauty clinic etc) or somewhere in retail looking for smart well heeled assistants - jewellers etc
OP, get your PC skills brushed up, look out for posters on shop windows too, if necessary go and do a few months voluntary - look on line for opportunities -

im not poo pooing these other jobs, much needed in society , however as @Hardhaton1 has said, it’s not always that simple to walk into them especially in areas with fewer well paid jobs - we may all think TA is a bit of a ‘fill in ‘ job and rubbish pay - in some areas they are much prized — and setting up a cleaning business isn’t a straight off the bat thing either if it’s more than just you working Asa cleaner ! If it’s that easy and lucrative and in demand how come we have plenty of people sat on their arse who could work but would rather not do care or cleaning? OP isn’t going to starve, I don’t think she wants to split either , so it’s better to be practical rather than just lurch at the first thing - you might not put up with the situation but sometimes people do for all kinds of reasons and advice needs to be based on what is likely to be of use. I come at it from someone who had to liquidate a business around18 years ago due to a supplier overseas stuffing us for near £48k -

we hadn’t insured against it because they were a very solid company who it didn’t cross our minds to insure - suddenly stopped paying and we were later told they wanted us out the way as in actual fact we were kind of competition - I learnt a lot about smiling sharks from that

the fact us you can pull back - we had to sell up as we had bank guarantees, tax liabilities and not enough equity to get out of it -

we did clear it, and built all back up again but have rented since - albeit very nice houses - one thing about owning and being self employed is if anything goes wrong tax wise or client wise - your house will often be on the line

I'm 61, never worked in a school before this year and have regular offers of TA work through one agency. I started with SEN work and now only do mainstream. TAs where I am based (southeast) have a high turnover and my agency can't seem to get enough of us.

You need access to all his accounts, work and personal, that's for starters.

This im afraid 😨

I know someone where this also happened. The husband a high earner absconded when the debt collectors turned up with the hope the tax bill would never be paid. His son tracked him down months later as they assumed he had committed suicide: The marriage broke down and house sold to pay off debts. It transpired after some time the man in question had a mistress he had been seeing/ holidaying/ hiding out with etc for 20 years plus. He was a super high functioning sociopath. His family were destroyed by this.

Yes. Sounds like it was just a savings account for the son not a trust fund with compensation or inheritance money. It that case it is actually still the parents money until they officially give it to their son. He still took it without her knowing though.