A 49 year-old man who set up a fake haulage company in his spare bedroom in order to steal more than £600k in taxes so that he wouldn’t have to ‘get a proper job’, has been jailed for four years.
James Harrison from Leeds in West Yorkshire was caught out by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) after he submitted false VAT returns that would have entitled his ‘company’ to £604,179 in VAT repayments. He even continued his fraud between October 2009 and January 2010 whilst in prison for an unrelated offence.
HMRC’s Martin McDonnell said after the case: “Harrison set up his company with the sole aim of committing fraud. He brazenly defrauded taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of pounds so that he could live the high life without having to work for it.
“Attacks on the VAT system are taken seriously by HMRC and anyone who thinks that they can undertake this type of activity without getting caught should look at this case as a warning. HMRC will pursue, investigate and prosecute people who commit fraud at the expense of the taxpayer.”
Harrison, who was declared bankrupt in 2005, registered his business ‘Express Haulage’ in 2007. Working from his spare bedroom, between 2007 and 2010 he tirelessly created fake invoices, haulage paperwork, insurance documents and fuel receipts in order to make it look as though his company was trading as a legitimate haulier.
He claimed to have purchased 30 new haulage vehicles, spending around £211,000 on fuel for his business, when in fact his company didn’t even have a haulage licence.
Sentencing Harrison, HH Recorder D Bradshaw at Leeds Crown Court described Harrisons attempt as a ‘blatant fraud’.
Background
Harrison was arrested by HMRC officers in March 2011 when they discovered his plans to expand and create a further company to try and steal even more money using the same scam. During his interviews he admitted that he had devised the plan so that he didn’t have to work. He stated that he had produced false documents purely to fool HMRC officers and that he had obtained the fake registrations for his ‘vehicles’ by driving past a well-known haulage supplier on the first day of new vehicle registrations and jotting down the registration numbers of the vehicles as they were unloaded.
HMRC officers discovered that Harrison had spent more than £430,000 in the last few years, splashing out on luxury cars, caravans, business class airline tickets and feeding his gambling habit – all the while continuing to claim his jobseekers allowance.
