Lanarkshire baker fined £60,000 over tax claims on sold business

A Scots baker has been fined £60,000 after being found to have continued to submit VAT repayment claims for a business that he had already sold.

Derek Higgins, 56, was probed by the taxman over false repayment claims after he sold his bakery business in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire.

Higgins was found to have submitted a total of ten false repayment claims to HMRC between 2011 and 2013 relating to the operating of the Higgins and Cushley bakery.

The fraudster appeared for sentencing at Airdrie Sheriff Court on Monday where he was given 160 hours community service to be completed within six months.

He was also handed a 16 week Restriction of Liberty Order, placing him under curfew between 7pm and 7am and a compensation order for £60,000 to be paid to HMRC by March 2017.

He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing in November to being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of VAT contrary to the VAT Act 1994.

Cheryl Burr, assistant director of HMRC’s fraud investigation service, said: “Higgins deliberately set out to create a false paper trail, manipulating a system that exists for the benefit of legitimate companies.

“This was theft, stealing money he was not entitled to, money that’s needed to fund our vital public services.”