Vincent Christopher Larkin from Bracknell, Berkshire received a six-year disqualification order in the High Court of Justice before Insolvency & Companies Court Judge Jones.

During proceedings the court heard that Larkin was the director of a scaffolding company called V Larkin Limited. Trading as Olympic Scaffolding which was incorporated in February 2006.

The firm went into liquidation in May 2019 and V Larkin Limited’s insolvency triggered an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

Investigators uncovered that Larkin caused the business to trade to the detriment of the tax authorities when V Larkin Limited failed to pay £209,000 worth of business and employee-related tax from the tax year ending 2016/2017.

Further enquiries revealed that between April 2017 and right up to the point the company was heading into liquidation in May 2019, Larkin caused the firm to make payments totalling close to £489,000 but no payments were identified as having been made to the tax authorities.

Larkin did not attend court and in his absence was disqualified and ordered to pay costs of £7,355.80.

Lawrence Zussman, Deputy Head of Company Investigations at the Insolvency Service, said: “As a company director, Vincent Larkin had a duty to ensure the scaffolding firm declared and paid the correct amount of taxes due. Our enquiries, however, clearly showed that Vincent Larkin systematically abused the tax authorities when the scaffolders failed to pay more than £200,000 of tax.

“This type of behaviour from a company director is deplorable and we will not hesitate in taking action against tax abuse.”