Theft or not this is serious

[urthdog]

Any help with this would be appreciated.
my friend is having big trouble, he recently set out to get a divorce and on receiving copies of his wifes' bank statement he's seen over £60,000 in payments to his wifes personal account from their business in twelve months (she has no other source of income) the business has been runing on just turnover for years showing no profit at all. There's also a huge amount of stock possibly worth £300,000 that has not been put through the books, the business is basically two shops he runs one and she runs the other though they're jointly owned. His shop has a declared profit of around £9,000 and from that he's been supporting the other business as there's often been not enough to pay the bills and no wonder as she's been taking all the cheques and cash and only leaving the switch payments to pay for everything.
Is this a police matter? He's also worried as they are not a limited company about all the assets being seized by VAT and Income tax as she's not paid any tax and could have been up to this for 30 years the figures are staggering for him and he doesn't know what to do.
again any help would be appreciated

 

[FIZIX Agency]

Firstly, she would be criminally liable if she has been stealing money and there are tax issues. I'm not sure how that would affect him and the assets; I assume any joint assets could be seized along with her assets.

If they were married at the time, I have to question how he wouldn't notice something, even just from his wifes lifestyle; it's a lot of money to pocket and would she just be stockpiling it?

I raise this for a reason, because if the IRS do come knocking, it could look a bit suspect and I imagine he will be investigated also. So it could be a bit of a dodgy situation.

Not trying to put the frighteners in, but now would be the time to be talking to lawyers and going through all the accounts with a fine tooth comb.

 

[Steve Sellers]

Hmmm. Of course this is theft, its fraud, tax evasions and possibly a whole host of other offences.

He has big decisions to be made and not something he can decide from advice on here. Go to a solicitor and he needs to decide whether it is in his best interests to squeal like a pig to the Police and HMRC.

 

[Tej]

. There's also a huge amount of stock possibly worth £300,000 that has not been put through the books, the business is basically two shops he runs one and she runs the other though they're jointly owned. His shop has a declared profit of around £9,000 and from that he's been supporting the other business as there's often been not enough to pay the bills and no wonder as she's been taking all the cheques and cash and only leaving the switch payments to pay for everything.

Interesting... how has that been funded?...

 

[urthdog]

thanks everyone,
regarding him not noticing he's been suffering from depression from her bullying him (he's a nice quiet spoken man and it would be very easy to bully him) so he's just been keeping away from her, having the two shops and not going into her domain is part of how she's got away with it and the other thing is he's just been giving the paperwork to the accountant to deal with. it's only since starting the divorce and getting her bank stuff that he's seen the true horror of what's been happening, she's not been spending it on a flah lifestyle just hoarding it in collectables in the home, stock in 'her' shop and in her bank!!
thanks again