Unpaid £300k tax bill sees 12-year ban as director

The boss of two landscaping firms has been banned from running companies after he ignored a previous disqualification and racked up £300,000 in unpaid taxes.

Neil Aldridge, from Goring Heath in Oxfordshire, was first banned as a company director in 2019 for three-and-a-half years after his company failed to pay more than £80,000 in tax.

The Insolvency Service said the 57-year-old ignored this ban and continued to run a company - which in turn accumulated hundreds of thousands of pounds in tax debts.

He has now been disqualified from running companies until February 2038, the government agency said.

Kevin Read, chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said Aldridge "knew he was banned from running companies, but carried on anyway, repeating the exact behaviour that got him disqualified in the first place".

"This is a textbook example of abusive phoenixism where directors use companies to evade debts," Read explained.

Aldridge was appointed sole director of Aldridge Landscaping Limited when it was incorporated in June 2017, and remained in position until he was barred from being a director in 2019.

By the time he had been disqualified, the firm had gone into liquidation and owed at least £82,650 to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

But Aldridge soon began leading Aldridge Landscaping Limited - a phoenix company, risen out of his previous firm.

He continued to run the company until 2022.

An HMRC petition for the firm to be wound-up was submitted two years later, by which point it owed £217,498 in unpaid VAT, Income Tax and National Insurance.

An updated ban on Aldridge from being involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company began on Thursday, after it was agreed by the business and trade secretary.

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