An aggressive tax avoidance scheme, linked to one of the recruitment industry’s highest-profile names, is liquidating hundreds more companies, according to filings made after a Guardian investigation exposed how the exchequer could lose millions. In the latest development, hundreds more similar mini-companies linked to the scheme are being disbanded, according to insolvency filings published by the official public record, The Gazette. Scores of the latest companies to be put into voluntary liquidation had Filipino directors plus ties to Anderson Group, when checked against public records and internal Anderson documents seen by the Guardian. The arrangements were designed to save tax by setting up thousands of tiny firms to exploit VAT and national insurance rules that were originally intended to help very small businesses. To do that, promoters transferred contracts of low-paid workers from a single large employment agency into a web of tiny companies.

Source: The Guardian July 20, 2017 14:15 UTC