26th January 2019
A previously jailed Lincolnshire restaurant owner has received a nine-year directorship ban after submitting false tax returns.
Jilan Moore, 68, from Silsby in Lincolnshire has been convicted of deliberately submitted false tax returns.
Moore was the director of Beijing Dragon Catering, which operated three The Beijing Dragon restaurants in Lincolnshire. Beijing Dragon Catering was incorporated in September 2007 and, at the company’s peak, Moore and her husband also ran restaurants in Spilsby, Grimsby and Skegness.
From 2013, Moore ran the restaurants as sole director before closing the Skegness site and, by September 2016, the company went into liquidation. The insolvency triggered an investigation by the Insolvency Service and investigators discovered the tax authorities had previously dealt with the company after they found Beijing Dragon Catering’s records failed to match the returns they had officially submitted. The authorities discovered Beijing Dragon Catering deliberately suppressed sales and under-declared tax owed for between February 2014 and April 2015.
The authorities sought to reclaim more than £100,000 in unpaid taxes but Beijing Dragon Catering could not afford to pay its debts, which forced the trading company to go into liquidation.
Moore has been banned for nine years from being a director, after she admitted to submitting five false tax returns that deliberately under-declared tax owed on sales. Moore was sentenced in March 2017 to two years’ imprisonment having been found guilty of tax fraud. She has since been released from jail.
Dave Elliott, chief examiner for the Insolvency Service, said: “This disqualification will send a clear message to other company directors – tax abuse of any kind, particularly when it comes to suppression of takings, will not be tolerated.”