Court: Parish councillor and brother ordered to repay £95,000

A parish councillor and his brother, who were jailed for tax fraud after they lied about the takings from their Lincolnshire restaurant, have been ordered to repay more than £95,000.
Lincoln Crown Court.Lincoln Crown Court.
Lincoln Crown Court.

Turon Miah was a Metheringham Parish Councillor while running the Mowglai restaurant in the village with his younger brother Sufi Miah.

The pair were jailed in October last year after they admitted VAT fraud and have now been ordered to pay back the money they made from their crimes at Lincoln Crown Court on Friday (July 14).

Turon was ordered to pay £39,937 within three months or face another 18 months in prison. Sufi was ordered to £55,505 within three months or spend another 21 months behind bars.

An investigation by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) found the pair kept some of the takings rather than putting them through the books for more than three years. The pair evaded £64,000 VAT as a result.

Their crimes were uncovered after HMRC’s restaurant taskforce made test purchases and discovered the pair were not accounting for cash sales during follow-up visits.

Searches of their homes and business address found handwritten notes and ‘takings’ books that detailed the fraud.

The pair admitted failing to report sales of £382,933, between March 2011 and November 2014, and keeping £63,822.31 that should have paid in VAT to HMRC.

Turon Miah was sentenced to 20 months in prison and Sufi Miah was sentenced to 16 months in prison at Lincoln Crown Court in October last year. Both admitted VAT fraud.

An HMRC spokesperson said: “The Miah brothers thought they could cheat the public purse and take money from the public services we all rely on.

“They’ve lost everything as a result - their freedom and all the money they made.”

• Anyone with information about tax fraud can it report by calling the HMRC Fraud Hotline on 0800 788 887.

Related topics: