Tax fraudster gets 4-year jail term

A TAX fraudster of Stockport, who went into hiding for eight years, has been awarded a four-year jail term.

Muhammad Tanwir Khan, who was convicted of conning the taxman of £800,000 in VAT repayment fraud, fled to Pakistan in 2013 before the quantum of punishment was pronounced. His name featured in the ‘20 most wanted' list.

But the law finally caught up with the 66-year-old man of Heaton Moor in Stockport when he came back to England. He was arrested on 13 August, the BBC said.

A Nightingale Crown Court of Manchester ordered him to undergo imprisonment for three year-and-a-half years for tax fraud and another six months for absconding.

He will have to spend another three years in prison if fails to repay £696,749 to HM Revenue and Customs.

According to the tax department, he created 350 fake invoices between 2006 and 2011 for the export of machinery parts to Pakistan which never took place.

Khan and his “trading company” Spearpoint Limited came under the scanner of HMRC which found discrepancies in VAT receipts.

"Khan stole more than £800,000 of taxpayers' money and thought he could escape punishment but now he must serve his sentence," Eden Noblett, assistant director of HMRC's fraud investigation service, said, according to the BBC report.