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.

You are in a great position because you have equity. Sell up, trade in the car, pay off your debt to HMRC and your son and live within your means. Also, divorce him, he's a liar.

It’s not unusual at all to negotiate tax debt down.

Vodafone made £5billion go away if I recall correctly.

Good luck OP. As far as I can see you've done nothing wrong here, and you're getting a hard time out because others are jealous.

Youre responding to the situation as best you can, and your dh is a nightmare. Unless he has some kind of major psychological turnaround, I'm not sure how you'd ever be able to trust him. But you're doing the right thing by staying as calm as you can.

Keep doing that. You still love him. It is possible to love someone despite huge errors and even this 😬. Your life has been built around his lies so that's going to take some time to cone to terms woth.

Good luck. X

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Just a thought.So far I’ve not seen whether the company was incorporated that is registered at Companies House limited liability and whether the OP as Company Secretary and her DH are directors.

OPs role was to prepare company accounts for the accountant and then sign off at an AGM and minuted.

So it seems OP was CS in name only and there was no accountant who would also have to provide an independent annual audit of the accounts.

A company is an independent entity/person owned by shareholders and if income and expenditure not properly accounted for and directors not perform their fiduciary duties under its memorandum and articles then they are deemed to be stealing from the company and the company mismanaged and the creditors have first call on directors assets, house savings trust fund (think Maxwell).
Whether OP remains or leaves makes no difference now. As CS she remains liable

She was possibly a CS in name only and her H didn't comply with or implement legal obligations.

Maybe she will come back and update?

"I was spending between £1-1.5k a month at that point to feed my addiction". ...
you mean your husband was spending £1-1.5k a month on your addiction to painkillers? No wonder he's skint. Maybe try getting a job at Tescos or something to contribute to all the "nice things" he's been providing for you over the years which have left him in this mess.

Even if you are no longer Company Secretary you were when he stopped paying Company taxes I'd imagine for it to be that amount. Or were you not doing your job and just enjoying spending money left right and centre. I'd insist on sitting down with him and solicitor to find out exactly what debts he has (may be more than tax) then, consider how it can be sorted. Maybe get a job yourself, you have his wages, make sure all payments are made on time for everything, then you'll know how much, if any is left for treats. Maybe your son should work and save his own money after he's paid board. As for divorce, up to you, but i thought vows were "for better or poorer" not, for as long as I can be treated like a millionaire. If you had to sell the house and get somewhere cheaper would you die?

Richer or poorer.

First things first, well done for not burying your head in the sand. And your husband although foolish sounds a lovely man. Don't up and leave him. He stuck with you during your tough times and now it's your turn, you're a team. Had a similar situation with my hubby yrs ago. He had a bad credit score. So was trying to help build it up. We split the bills. He had the electricity and I had the council tax. We rented the flat off a colleague of mine. Fast forward 3yrs when we'd saved enough for a deposit on our own house, moved out etc. My colleague contacted me and asked me who our electricity was with, as he'd got new tenants lined up. I had no idea, asked hubby and neither did he??? 😳
Turned out he hadn't been paying it! So 3.5k was not paid. I was mortified! So cross, upset and really bloody embarrassed because it was my colleague! Why didn't he tell me? I could've sorted it! So in the end we paid installments over the next year to pay it off, he just said he forgot about it, didn't think about it, etc? When in fact he panicked and hid it by binning the letters etc!!
Safe to say I'm in charge of the bills nowadays.

This is weaponized incompetence.

Maybe in the grand scheme of money management, but he makes up for it with the skills in the home, he does all the washing, most of the cooking, most of the cleaning so whilst not great in the money management he's great in other areas. This is why I know it's not on purpose.

Hi

Don't know how to search if you've had more posts since this one. Found your thread by accident and was interested bc.my DH is suggesting we are less than honest about an income matter.

Dh also says 'i never refuse you anything' in reality he does refuse me all the time but he covers up as it being better for me if we dont do x or y. He has serious Mh issues and is currently sulking in the bedroom bc I didnt tell him about a can of (Aldi) beans I couldn't open.
I haven't left b4 bc I do love the man, our child loves him and as DH has serious medical issues I feel.like I should stay for 'in sickness etc'.

I hope OP you are OK and you've found a way through. The negative people are ridiculous, you had a high earning husband who couldn't be honest when whatever it was went wrong. Doesn't mean you did anything wrong personally. It's incredibly difficult when someone is covering up stuff.

Anyway, thought I'd say hi
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