Inland revenue liability help

[nickjb]

In 2000 i started working as a IT contractor, at that time i was 20 and
had no clue about business or finance, and unfortunately no one I knew
and trusted had any knowledge of the subject either.

I signed up with a contractor accountancy firm who opened a ltd company
for me and were supposed to deal with invoicing and tax payments etc,
however after about 4-5 months they went bust, though my company didn't
loose any money as it was in a seperate company account that i
controlled i basically had no idea of what taxes etc had and hadn't
been paid. I carried on contracting and invoicing my client for a total
of about 11 months.

After this time the client basically ran out of money (dot com bust
story) for further projects and i lost the contract. I tried and tried
to find other work but didn't have any luck for nearly a year (although
i did do a few short (1-2 week) contracts but these just kept a little
mooney flowing in, after this time though the company had used a
significant proportion of the money left in the account.

During this time I employed another accountant to do year end accounts
and so forth (although i have to say i still didn't really understand
about all the different personal and company taxes so hoped they would
sort it all out). They sent in the year end accounts etc and it
appeared the company tax due was about 20k for the first operating
year.

At this point i thought bugger it, time to give up as i still had had
little luck finding work so i wrote to the inland revenue to explain
the situation the company was in and sent them a cheque for about 8k
which was all that was left in the company accounts, i also filled in
the forms to wind up the company, it didn't have any creditors apart
from the IR so i thought that would be fine.

I never heard anything from the IR again (they banked the cheque), and
after about a year or so (late 02 early 03 ish) the company was closed
(according to companies house).

Now the real question! Those possible liablities are worrying me a lot,
I would have done something sooner but it's taken me quite some time to
get back on my feet (I lived in a hovel and did lots of low pay jobs
for about year so you can imagine i had other things on my mind other
than sorting out some tax inspectors in-tray) but now have a decent job
again so would really like to ensure everything sorted.

What if one day I get a bill for 20 something grand from the IR (debt +
interest), i've heard that a director can be held personally liable for
PAYE/NIC which some of these debts were for - what should i do, am i liable still etc???

Thanks for reading and your time

 

[Alpha]

Nick

I've answered this via a PM.

 

[gj]

When a company is struck from the register, the creditors are deemed to have had the opportunity to make any claims etc. Having let the company get struck off, the Revenue have effectively given up the opportunity to pursue THE COMPANY for any debts.

Whilst it is true that in certain circumstances they can pursue the directors for outstanding tax/NI on directors salaries, I have never come across a case where they have done so. In any event I would expect them to have raised the issues first with the company - and objected to the striking off.

Now that the company has been struck off, I think it highly unlikely that they would even attempt any recovery from you - they will have written off any debt and closed their file.

I know it is difficult but you have to put this behind you and stop worrying about something that almost certainly will never be an issue. I hope that helps put you mind at ease.

Graham