John Wormall,  a local businessman has just been banned from acting as a company director for five years by the Insolvency Service.

Over a period of 13 months he failed to pay more than £450,000 PAYE and NIC to HMRC, which to anyone in business will seem absolutely unbelievable. We act for clients who, if they are a few days late with their monthly payment, receive a phone call from HMRC.

As always when a company fails there are many victims – the employees, the suppliers, the other creditors and we the taxpayers ourselves. Inevitably there are fewer culprits – the directors spring to mind and sometimes the banks. Tempting though it is to blame HMRC , in this case, for allowing the debts to rise I don’t believe it’s their fault.

The real culprit is this government and previous governments for not giving HMRC enough money to do their job properly. It’s painfully obvious to everyone but politicians that money spent on HMRC is an investment not a cost. It should be increased not cut.