Amanpreet Danny Sahota of Dansah Ltd has been disqualified for submitting false VAT returns to HM Revenue & Customs and trading Dansah to the detriment of HMRC, the majority creditor at the company’s liquidation.
Dansah began trading in April 2011, when Mr Sahota was just 23 years old, supplying labour via subcontractors to the construction industry.
Mr Sahota authorised VAT returns to be submitted to HMRC requesting refunds of VAT he claimed Dansah had paid to subcontractors.
The invoices he submitted to support these did not meet the standard required by HMRC, with many being undated and not specifying what goods or services had purportedly been supplied. HMRC conducted an investigation into Dansah’s tax affairs and noted that the supposed suppliers of the labour did not have the workforce to have conducted the work claimed by Mr Sahota.
Other invoices submitted by Mr Sahota, claiming refunds of VAT paid, were issued by another limited company of which Mr Sahota was the sole director. This company was never registered for VAT; Mr Sahota said it was dormant and had never traded. Despite this, he attempt to falsely reclaim VAT for them.
HMRC’s investigation determined that Dansah had used its own workforce to fulfil its client’s requirements without verifying those labourers on the CIS (construction industry scheme) system which gave rise to further tax. Mr Sahota did not appeal HMRCs findings.
Andrew Stanley, Chatham official receiver at the Insolvency Service, said: “Mr Sahota deliberately mislead HMRC in an attempt to avoid Dansah paying tax and attempted to reclaim tax that Dansah hadn’t paid. Mr Sahota has abused the tax regime; disqualifying him as a director upholds the integrity of the insolvency and taxation regimes and also acts as a deterrent to others from repeating such misconduct in the future.
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