Singing ex-Vantis man ordered to pay back £800,000
David Perrin has to return £809,692 to the public purse in six weeks or face a further three years behind bars
A FORMER DIRECTOR at Vantis Tax has been ordered to pay back £809,000 after his part in a £70m tax fraud, the Times reports.
David Perrin was jailed for 18 months, while his colleague and managing director Roy Faichney was sentenced to four years after they worked together to share £4.5m in profit from a fraudulent tax scheme that ‘gifted’ charities worthless shares while the tax advisers claimed tens of millions of pounds in tax relief on clients’ behalf.
The relief, of £70m, was claimed against £213m of income and company profits based on the shares being priced at £1 each – but they were only worth the pennies they had originally been bought for.
The pair bizarrely mocked HM Revenue & Customs by singing an adapted version of Gloria Gaynor’s hit I Will Survive, which included the verse: “They should have changed that stupid law/ they should have buggered charity/ but they have left that lovely tax relief/ for folks to pay to me.”
Through the scheme, they generated around £4.5m of profits for themselves, and at a proceeds of crime hearing held at Blackfriars Crown Court, it was heard Perrin had spent his gains on cars, holidays and property.
He was given six weeks to pay back £809,692 to HMRC or face an additional three years in prison.
HMRC criminal investigator Jim Graham said: “With his knowledge of the tax system, Perrin thought he was one step ahead of both HMRC and the law. This cynical fraud not only stole millions of pounds from taxpayers, but also conned innocent charities into accepting gifts of virtually worthless shares, just so Perrin could inflate his own criminal earnings.
