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.

💯 agree.

I must say it sounds like a right mess OP. £130k a year income really isn’t enough to live the sort of lifestyle you seem to have had, even without the tax issue. You need to take some responsibility here-how on earth can you go through life not knowing a thing about your household finances? That needs to change now - it’s not 1952. I’m at most 15 years younger than you and I can’t imagine living like that.

I also find some of your posts worrying: do not ask your mum or your sister for money. That would be completely out of order when you do have the means to fix the situation (if you don’t want to leave your husband or declare bankruptcy). You will just need to find a job. Look at care work, shop work, cleaning work-whatever you need to do. And you may need to remortgage.

Your husband has lied and committed fraud. If your son’s trust fund was in your son’s name then that is potentially fraud, and your husband needs to own up to that.

The only way to salvage this is brutal honesty and the both of you getting your heads out of fantasy land.

And worrying about whether or not you’d be able to trust another man is absolutely not what you should be focusing on right now-get your priorities in order.

With respect, £130k as a sole income for a couple is hardly rolling in it and is the result of running a business (not particularly well by the sounds of it). Someone on £10k in 2025 is either being paid well below minimum wage or part time so isn't really comparable to a business owner.

Sorry you’re annoyed you can’t get month from
your mother or sister - even though you could
get the money from your house!!??

you have the money to pay off the debt - it’s in your house - pay the money that you owe with the money THAT YOU HAVE

The type of suicide he’ll be thinking of will be leaving his clothes on a beach and running off to Cambodia.

Then you’ll be left to clear up the mess left behind.

If he earns £130K pa then owing £150K in tax is about right as the tax on £130K is around 50% including NI. So, 3 years @ £50K tax.

However I agree with the PP that you sound as if you've never bothered to look into your finances.

I'm much older than you, married 39 years and have always worked. I know every single penny we have as we have a spread sheet we update regularly, with all our income including shares, pension, and savings like ISAs.

You need to take some share of this, but you also need to seriously consider leaving him. He is basically deceiving you (and HMRC!)

You are completely employable but you need to accept you will have to work in supermarket, garden centre, cafes, a care home, or find something you can do self-employed.

Kindly too, £130K is not megabucks. It may sound a fortune to many people but almost half of that goes on tax. As a joint income (you don't work) it's not a fortune and is the same as 2 people earning £65K each.

You will simply have to get a job- it's not an option to not work if you split up.

OP, do you have any other assets you could sell?
Cars?
Jewellery?
Tech?

Maybe try and raise as much as possible without selling the house, and set up a payment plan for the rest ( once you have seen paperwork confirming what is owed, and who to)

I feel for OP. Thankfully never been in the situation that they have found themselves in though.

But comments regarding they themselves not working was and is relatively common with women in their mid fifties. Of which I am one.

we were the last trance of women with whom it was more common to be a SAHM and then found ourselves put out to pasture. So a little bit unfair to berate someone of whom there are many.

had I had the opportunity again I would have done things so differently.

but we are were we are, whoever we are.

I love that women now know their worth in terms of careers and employability. But it wasn’t as cut and dried 25 years ago

I'm a secretary in our business and am really surprised that they left it to get to 500k before contacting you.

Being the secretary I see all paperwork/outgoings/incoming to do with the business and also have to sign the TAX/VAT forms from the accountants twice yearly, did you not notice at any point that they weren't being given to you to sign?

If you're no longer named as a company employee why are the bailiffs giving you the letters and not your DH.

If you're still liable, and maybe not so, you need to stop listening to what your DH says and seek your own legal advice at least hopefully you'll be hearing the truth to what sort of situation you are in and how best to deal with it.

I am mid 50s and every single mid 50s mother I know except one who has 3 autistic adults children works and always has done - some took a career break while the kids were little, most just reduced their hours.

The trust fund was set up when our son was a baby. We paid into it every month. HMRC (through the debt collectors) initially wanted £500k which the tax lawyers explained was nonsense and it was reduced to £150k. That's the final settlement agreed by both parties. I honestly never demanded certain material things because I could see the same amount going into our accounts and that was what we had to either spend or save. Or at least, what i thought we had. 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. All bills were getting paid, apart from the tax as it turns out. It has taken nearly 7 months of wrangling between our lawyers and the debt collectors to reduce £500k (which was ridiculous) to the actual sum of £150k now owed. I'm obviously horrified by all this. I loathe debt. When I was on all those pills I was in the grip of a horrendous addiction cycle and got no help from the doctors. It was hellish. There are no words for the shame and embarrassment I felt and still feel. It never leaves you. Trust me, addiction can strike anyone irrespective of your background. I didn't know which way was up but fought hard to get off them. I don't drink, I've never enjoyed alcohol and could never get past one glass without feeling sick...though strangely not like that with codeine. I have worked in the past btw...at an accountancy firm and then a lawyers. I gave up my job to move to the Middle East when my son was a baby through my husband's work in the oil industry. I've applied for jobs but either don't get called for interview or haven't been successful when I have. I am very articulate, well dressed and look very smart. But again, with money I thought I had....I'm mostly pissed off re my son's trust fund. That's really hard to take. I adore my boy, we're very close and I'm very open with him. He knows everything, I mean everything.

How spiteful. Her mistake was in not taking any awareness of money, not being a SAHM. That's not a punishable crime.

This. It’s not making much sense to me.

If you owed this much tax then the tax man would have you in court.

If you had been to court surely you know the exact amount.

Have disagree with this. It sounds more like my MILs generation (now aged late 70s). I'm in my 50s, always worked, and it was very normal to keep working and a specific choice couples/women made to be SAHM, because they wanted to not because it was the done thing and they were so passive they could be 'put out to pasture'. Clearly your experience was different but I wouldn't absolve the OP by blaming social mores for this one. She sounds more like she's bought into the WAG of it all, with the comments of liking nice things, fancy watches, 'blonde bimbo' and so on. Sounds like her sister worked and OP could've gone back at any point if she'd wanted to with one DC in school, but it suited her not to and it's still suiting her to be 'unemployable' even though she's really not.

Bollocks. I am very late 40s so only few years younger than OP and none of my peers were SAHM's.

If Accounts were not filed then certain assumptions about CT and VAT will have been made by HMRC and the true figure might not have been known until this happened, its a huge drop though

OP can not fund her life after divorce. Therefore she needs to get a job - any job - immediately. There are few people who are unemployable if they are healthy and willing to take a poorly paid job then look for something better in a few months. That might mean cleaning or care work or McDonalds or a call centre.

Yes she needs to know how bad the debts are but she has contributed to the problems and needs to start paying them down. If she has liked "nice things" maybe she can sell some of them to help pay back a little while she is looking for a job.

You've identified the solution yourself. Remortgage and pay off the debt. Your default seems to be what other family members can provide, yet it's not clear why they should be the ones to sort this?

Remortgage to state pension age, get a job yourself, and get a laser light focus on family finances and business finances if you want to stay with him.

And go through everything now with an expert to make sure he's not lying any more than he already has.

My accountant lets me know how much tax I owe, but they don't force me to pay it.

I've become used to a certain lifestyle

what does that mean? You have said this multiple times.

Does he even love you? I guess he does or else he must have put pressure on you to contribute financially too.
But you don’t say where money was being spent.

Easy for posters to say divorce him without having all the details. I am getting a sense you have expensive taste as you say you are used to certain lifestyle and he was funding it plus maybe his own expensive taste by avoiding taxes.

We do have an accountant...set up by me. However, having visited them a few months earlier he's not been dealing with them. Probably because there's no money for the tax. But there is, we just need to reduce our surplus money....if I'd have known and yes, been less passive, it wouldn't have got to this. I genuinely kept asking if there was anything I could do, is everything ok and getting a 'it's all good' every time. This is definitely my fault because i should have pushed nay demanded!

You have been incredibly honest on here. Ignore the addiction posts, they obviously know nothing about it. It’s so easy to get hooked on them, and doctors were not as careful as they are today, nor was there any support to help people. It’s ruined the lives of so many and thankfully you aren’t one of them op.

This is a major blow, but I agree your dh appears to love you and has done this with good intentions. The motive is important here. He has strived to keep you happy, and tried to contain the unfolding disaster himself.

He needs counselling, and then you both need couples counselling to discuss how the dynamics have affected his judgement and the impact of the loss of trust, you need to get to the bottom of why he did it. Almost certainly conditioning from his childhood.

Get the house valued and consider downsizing so you can pay back you debts and your son, and start again. It is your best chance.

Legal advice individually and maybe just maybe you will be able to get past this in time with conditions that you monitor all finances.

Well really the Trust Fund wasn't your sons - it was funded by money that should have been paid in tax! If your taxes had been paid there wouldn't have been any left to pay into the Trust!

You COULD get a job OP, you are articulate and physically able so go round the supermarkets in your vicinity and ask if there are any vacancies for anything.

Your DH stood by you during your addiction which hit him financially and emotionally.

Your turn to stand up and be counted I think. Be proactive. Take control of the finances and GET A JOB, ANY JOB.

Or sell your house, pay off all the tax and buy a little cheap property to live in.

I'm another who's aghast and pretty disgusted that you even thought of borrowing from family.

If that fund was a proper trust fund, with all the legalities associated with the set up your husband had commit theft and fraud and could go to prison. Are you sure it's a trust fund not just an account in your names?