Yorkshire accountant who ran tax advisory business but failed to pay his own £300,000 tax bill avoids jail as 'prisons are overcrowded'

Charles Michael Anthony Brown, 58, admitted declaring his company, MB Tax Solutions, as dormant when it was in fact still trading between 2013 and 2018, and avoiding paying VAT, corporation tax and underestimating his own income tax return.

The prosecution and defence agreed he owed around £311,000 and the business had made a profit of £841,000 during a period when Brown declared his own annual income to be less than £40,000.

Appearing at York Crown Court on Friday, Brown, of Main Street in Hirst Courtney, near Selby, was given a two-year suspended sentence after Judge Simon Hickey referred to guidance issued at a sentencing earlier this month in which a Justice advised that as prisons are currently overcrowded, ‘borderline cases’ could avoid custodial terms.

The former accountant now works as a Yodel delivery driver, though the court heard that he had been offered ‘business propositions’ by associates working in due diligence for land and property sales, despite losing his professional accreditation.

His defence barrister also told the court that only this week, HMRC officers ‘wearing stab vests’ had conducted a dawn raid at the Brown family home during a continued investigation into his assets, and had seized his laptop and mobile phone as well as items belonging to his wife and children.

Brown, who has no previous convictions, co-operated fully with the investigation into his tax affairs and pleaded guilty to all counts against him.

His counsel added: “This is a tragedy of his own making. He is an intelligent man and did what he thought was the only way out of his difficulties. He buried his head in the sand. This has been hanging over him for 10 years. He is genuinely remorseful.

"This was not complicated or convoluted covering up – it was panic and lacked sophistication.”

Some of the financial difficulties arose out of the costs of travelling to a job he took in Shrewsbury, while others were due to him not being paid for work he had done.

Although a Proceeds of Crime hearing is scheduled to take place next year, the judge was told that a friend of Brown’s had offered to repay the money in full at an earlier date.

However, Judge Hickey rejected the defence account that Brown had panicked, saying: “There was persistence in filing false VAT returns, one per year. Your mistake escalated. I don’t agree it was panic – this was deliberately done. With some hesitation, I draw back from immediate custody.”

Brown was also sentenced to 200 hours of unpaid work.