Courts Ban Scaffolder for Tax Abuse

Scaffolder from Berkshire has been disqualified by the courts for 6 years after failing to pay close to £210,000 of tax.

On 18 October 2022, Vincent Christopher Larkin (51), from Bracknell, Berkshire, received a 6-year disqualification order in the High Court of Justice before Insolvency & Companies Court Judge Jones.

During proceedings the court heard that Vincent Larkin was the director of a scaffolding company called V Larkin Limited. Trading as Olympic Scaffolding, the scaffolders was incorporated in February 2006.

The scaffolding firm, however, went into liquidation in May 2019 and V Larkin Limited’s insolvency triggered an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

Investigators uncovered that Vincent Larkin caused the scaffolders to trade to the detriment of the tax authorities when V Larkin Limited failed to pay £209,000 worth of business and employee-related tax from the tax year ending 2016/2017.

Further enquiries revealed that between April 2017 and right up to the point the company was heading into liquidation in May 2019, Vincent Larkin caused the scaffolders to make payments totalling close to £489,000 but no payments were identified as having been made to the tax authorities.

Vincent Larkin did not attend court and in his absence was disqualified and ordered to pay costs of £7,355.80.

Lawrence Zussman, Deputy Head of Company Investigations at the Insolvency Service, said:

As a company director, Vincent Larkin had a duty to ensure the scaffolding firm declared and paid the correct amount of taxes due. Our enquiries, however, clearly showed that Vincent Larkin systematically abused the tax authorities when the scaffolders failed to pay more than £200,000 of tax.

This type of behaviour from a company director is deplorable and we will not hesitate in taking action against tax abuse.