The owners of a tailors in Fulham who pocketed tax deducted from staff pay as part of a £425,000 tax fraud, have been jailed for a total of five years.
David Saxby and Gisele Dineur kept £426,095.62 that should have been paid in VAT, Corporation Tax, Income Tax and National Insurance Contributions to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
They were each sentenced to two and-a-half years in prison at Ipswich Crown Court after both admitted tax fraud on Monday (October 2).
In 2013 Saxby, 68, was disqualified from acting as a director following an investigation into missing takings worth £1.7 million.
From the courts
The business, in Fulham High Street, operated as David Saxby Ltd as well as David Saxby Sporting Tweeds and Formal Wear, offering made-to-measure tweed jackets, plus fours and other vintage clothes.
Mark Cox, assistant director of the HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, said: “Saxby and Dineur decided the rules did not apply to them and they’re now paying the price.
“Their employees trusted them to pay over the tax and national insurance that was deducted from their salaries.
“But instead they pocketed the money along with other taxes that should have gone to funding our vital public services.”
HMRC investigators found they failed to kept business records but examination of bank accounts and card transactions revealed the scale of their fraud.
Saxby and Dineur, 40, failed to register for and pay VAT and neither of them submitted Self Assessment tax returns.
Saxby, of Fulham High Street, and Dineur, of Hill House Lane in Ipswich, were banned from being company directors for 10 years.
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