A Dundee businessman has denied cheating the tax man out of a six-figure sum over a four-year period.
HM Revenue and Customers published its list of deliberate tax defaulters, naming people and businesses thought to have made deliberate errors on their returns or to have deliberately failed to comply with their obligations.
A number of Scots are included in the list, including David Richardson Sinclair, owner of MOT Service Station on Kirk Road in Lochee.
According to HMRC, he defaulted on his tax liabilities of £117,888.11 between April 6 2010 and April 5 2014.
Additionally, he is alleged to have accrued penalties of £78,395.57 for defaulting.
On Companies House Mr Sinclair is named as a former director of two dissolved companies – Tayside Auto Electrics and 123 Auto Parts (Tayside) – and a former director of Longforgan-based Discovery Gas Supplies.
Tayside Auto Electrics was based in the same Lochee premises used by MOT Service Station.
However, Mr Sinclair denied any wrongdoing when contacted by The Courier.
He said: “I’ll have to speak to someone about this. I think they have made a mistake.”
Mr Sinclair also said HMRC has not contacted him about any debts, or any penalties.
The HMRC said its policy was to publish information about deliberate tax defaulters after it has carried out an investigation, when the person has been charged one or more penalties for deliberate defaults and where those penalties involve tax of more than £25,000.
A spokesman said: “Publishing taxpayers’ names is not something we do lightly.
“However, we want the local community to know we are tackling deliberate defaulters and it encourages others to get back on track.
“Most people declare the tax that is due, but there are a small minority who try to evade their responsibilities. The people named today have cheated the Exchequer out of more than £25,000, and that’s unfair to those who pay their tax.
“We are committed to making sure people pay the tax they owe. For the minority who refuse to pay, HMRC has a range of tools available.
“Publishing details of deliberate defaulters is just one of the tools in HMRC’s compliance strategy for combating tax evasion and non-compliance.”
Meanwhile, an HMRC worker who was part of a gang-of-six involved in a £2.4 million tax fraud has been jailed for more than give years.
Susanne Green, 38, of Elgin was described as the “lynchpin” of the scam.
Green used company details provided by accountants Michael Perry, 46, from Essex, and Daniel Weidner, 47, from Hampshire, to fraudulently misallocate VAT payments to specified businesses.
The probe found that Arthur Lee, 55, from Essex – who was in relationship with Green – received details of unallocated payments from her and passed them to unqualified accountants Perry and Weidner.
They then used their clients’ companies to claim the VAT payments for themselves.
Two men, along with Lee – Londoner Michael Myatt, 56, and Stephen Maish, 54, a semi-professional darts player from Wigan, Lancashire – allowed their identities and companies to be used as part of the fraud.
