Recycling boss jailed
A BUSINESSMAN from Runcorn, who stole more than £112,000 from his workers’ pay packets, has been jailed for two years.
Kevin Cheung, 41, director of Ace Recyclers, deducted Income Tax and National Insurance contributions from his employees’ wages for over five years, but instead of paying it to HMRC he pocketed the cash.
Cheung also failed to fully declare his own income from three companies between 2008 and 2014. He understated his true income on Self Assessment (SA) tax returns sent to HMRC and was also jailed for evading over £14,000 in owed tax.
Cheung admitted that he was responsible for completing PAYE payroll on behalf of his business and that he had submitted false tax returns for himself.
He pleaded guilty to three tax fraud offences at Chester Crown Court on Monday April 11. He was sentence, the same day to two years imprisonment for the PAYE fraud and ten months for each SA fraud to run concurrently.
The court took into consideration that his failure to pay Income Tax and NICs on behalf of his employees resulted in their tax and National Insurance contributions records being incomplete, thereby affecting the ability of the employees to access state benefits and pensions.
While trading he employed between three and 12 workers at any one time and HMRC said that it believe up to 25 individuals have been affected by his fraud.
