Portsmouth restaurateur banned for tax offences

THE boss of Fareham steakhouse has been banned from running companies for six years.

He has been banned for submitting inaccurate information to the tax authorities.

The Rancho Steak House (Fareham) Limited was incorporated in 2013 and traded as a licenced restaurant in Fareham.

Mohamed Giash Uddin, 48, from Portsmouth, was appointed the director of the company at the same time as Fareham was incorporated.

However, for three years, he failed to submit accurate information to the tax authorities.

The restaurateur under-declared more than £42,000 worth of VAT contributions between December 2013 and August 2017.

This omission by Mohamed Uddin resulted in the company making additional profits, which meant the Portsmouth-based restaurateur should have paid increased corporation tax contributions totalling more than £27,000.

Mohamed Uddin’s misconduct was investigated after the official receiver was appointed as liquidator of Fareham in December 2018.

This followed a petition submitted by one of the company’s creditors for Fareham to be wound up.

During their enquiries, investigators from the insolvency service also discovered that the company owed a further £21,000 in tax on loans to the directors, while also failing to pay outstanding penalties issued by the tax authorities.

On December last year, the secretary of state accepted a disqualification undertaking from Mohamed Uddin after he did not dispute that he failed to ensure that Fareham submitted accurate information to the tax authorities.

Dave Elliott, chief investigator for the Insolvency Service, said: “It wasn’t a one-off event when Mohamed Uddin failed to submit accurate information to the tax authorities but something he continued to do over several years, depriving the exchequer of statutory tax contributions.”

“This disqualification means that Mohamed Uddin will not be able to run a limited company for six years and this will help to protect the tax authorities from future losses.”

Effective from January 13, 2020, the Portsmouth restaurateur cannot, without the permission of the court, be involved in the formation, promotion or management of a company, directly or indirectly, for six years.