Amanpreet Danny Sahota of Dansah Ltd submitted false VAT returns before the company went into liquidation owing £365,000.

Dansah commenced trading in April 2011 supplying labour via subcontractors to the construction industry.

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 “suppliers” of the labour did not have the workforce to have conducted the work claimed by Sahota.

These entities were ultimately compulsorily de-registered for VAT as ‘missing traders’ having never submitted any VAT returns themselves.

Other invoices submitted by Sahota claiming refunds of VAT paid, were issued by another limited company of which Sahota was the sole director.

HMRC’s investigation determined that Dansah had used its own work force to fulfil its client’s requirements without verifying those labourers on the CIS system which gave rise to further tax.

Andrew Stanley, Official Receiver Chatham 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.”