An Inverness businessman who swindled the taxman out of almost £36,000 was caught because his fake invoices were littered with spelling errors.
Agricultural contractor Ian Miller, who was employed by a timber firm and registered as a sole trader, appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court and admitted the fraud by submitting false VAT returns.
Fiscal depute Robert Weir told Sheriff Ian Cruickshank that an HMRC officer conducted a VAT compliance visit at Miller’s home address in Towerhill Road, Cradlehall, on January 13, 2020 as the value of his repayments had remained fairly constant over several years.
Mr Weir said: “This is a risk indicator for HMRC. From January 2014 to July 2019, the accused had received £43,264.95 in VAT repayments from HMRC and now accepts £36,514 is falsely claimed.
“During the visit, he provided his purchase records, sales records and a business bank statement to HMRC.
“Initial inspection identified that the invoices supplied were copies, some with formatting and spelling errors and were suspected to be false.
Claimed friend helped him create fake invoices
“When questioned he admitted to creating and providing false invoices to help substantiate his claims for input tax but insisted his VAT repayment claims had been correct, and he had misplaced the originals.”
The court heard that an investigation of Miller’s bank accounts did not show any of the purchases he claimed to have made and no receipt of payment for any work the accused claimed to have carried out was shown on any bank statements.
His VAT record book also had incorrect invoice numbers and they were not in chronological order.
Mr Weir added: “The case was passed to HMRC Fraud Investigation Services for a criminal investigation. During an interview by HMRC Officers, he claimed that a friend helped him create fake invoices.
“He eventually admitted that he had not done any agricultural work at all since January 2014, that he had created false paperwork to provide to HMRC at the compliance visit and he had received VAT repayments from HMRC which he was not entitled to from 2014 onwards.”
Sentence was deferred until December 11 for a background report and Miller’s bail was continued.