Hey guys, it's Ashley My business just got investigated by his Majesty's revenue and Customs I say just. But this issue has been going on for a very long and painful six weeks and it only just came to a conclusion this morning. So that means that I can tell you now what happened exactly why my company got investigated, how bad it was and I want to share some thoughts. If anyone from the Hmrc or from the UK government is watching, make sure you keep listening out for those thoughts.

but just a warning for you. They might not be conveyed in the most politically correct manner. so please accept my most insincere apologies in advance. So six weeks ago, at the beginning of May the Hmrc, which is the UK tax Authority contacted me to let me know that the company that I run with my wife is under investigation.

According to the tax man, this was just a routine review. This happens all the time and all I needed to do was explain a few numbers that they wanted to find out more about to them and that would be that. But the thing with dealing with the tax Man is this: if they tell you there is absolutely nothing at all to worry about and they just have a few quick questions, that is exactly the time when you should get a bit concerned and you absolutely do know that it won't end with a few quick questions. Spoiler alert It didn't to understand why the Hmrc was so interested to investigate.

You need to know a bit of background before I started on YouTube I Ran a strategy consulting company based in London. The company did pretty well for itself. I Started a company back in 2014 and it grew to a very decent level. We had a whole load of employees sitting in a fancy office in.

London My company provided advice to many banks and financial services companies in the UK in the UK specifically I think we advised two-thirds plus of all the banks that exist we worked in the United States in the Middle East in Asia in Europe I spent many months working in New York in Abu Dhabi The business was going great in the process of the business going great. I was sending the Hmrc fat paychecks every quarter, I was paying all the income taxes National Insurance from employing people and I was handing over stupid amounts of vat which is the UK sales tax and then I also paid them the 20 corporation tax at the end of the year on top. So while the going was good, the tax ban was happy and I have never had an investigation until now I know they just random, right? But then the UK government decided to murder my business first. Along came Brexit and Brexit.

Heard the business quite considerably our Revenue suffered. We got hit on many International projects before the comments section goes into overdrive on the political debate. I'm not trying to score any points. The issue here is not Brexit versus no Brexit.

The real issue is the complete incompetence that the UK government showed in how Brexit was delivered. How nobody knew what the deal on, how the commercial setup would work until the very last possible moment. No business could plan ahead. No business could make any kind of long-term decisions.

How the UK government failed to do any proper planning. No genuine negotiation with no time consideration whatsoever. Which means that when big banks are tendering for long-term contracts in international business, small UK businesses like us got completely shafted. But anyway, the business kept going.

We continued sending slightly less fat paychecks over to Hmrc. But then Along came covid and along with covet came the UK government's idiotic overreaction, which murdered my business overnight. Our Strategy Consulting company was not a big established name. we weren't Deloitte we didn't have customers queuing up at the front door to give us business.

The company was doing pretty well, but every single project that we won was the result of My Blood Sweat and Tears I had to go out there and win every single one and overnight. I Couldn't travel to meet prospective clients I Couldn't attend events aiming to bump into the right guy at the right time from the right Bank who's holding a tender that I might want our company to try and win? It was extremely hard and before the people mention it, yes, going on a zoom call or sending a code email doesn't quite work as well I couldn't even deliver projects that were already in the pipeline properly because I couldn't physically turn up. And for a big company, weathering a few months of this might not be a big deal. But for a small bootstrap company that was a very, very big deal.

The government cherry-picked some industries that they decided out of the goodness of their heart needed more help. Things like restaurants and hotels they got given several grants could stop paying their business rates. the help was coming. you know they needed help, but we for example, got nothing.

I am one of the hundreds of thousands of small businesses in the UK who got absolutely annihilated. Nobody in the UK government gave a I was not legally allowed to travel to my office to work, but but I still had to pay business rates to the local council at the full rate and got nothing. no discount, no grants, no rebates all the way through the lockdown while some businesses were receiving one Grant after another, I was busy laying off staff and paying Severance to every single employee that I had trying to figure out how I am meant to pay rent on the office. That said, empty for over a year after the pandemic started without earning any Revenue I Never liked Consulting much anyway, but here I didn't have a choice.

So in March 2020 my company stopped doing consulting and I started this YouTube channel in the same month along with the websites that are now part of this new content business that sit under the same umbrella. The company took on debt I took on debt more debt than I ever imagined taking and I dived off the deep end using that debt I had never made a video in my life before and I knew absolutely nothing about YouTube nothing about editing I knew precious little about the world of media but I actually really in enjoy this work unlike Consulting So I decided I am going to figure out how to make it work. Pretty much everyone that I know thought I was absolutely insane. They probably were right, but that is how it happened.

And as this happened, the business went from raking in good Revenue every quarter to making nothing slowly that nothing grew as the business grew. But there was one problem: the business model changed and I stopped handing over fat paychecks to the Hmrc. I no longer employ an army of people here and I didn't have the money to pay myself. so I suddenly stopped paying Hmrc income tax and national insurance payments.

Oh, who could possibly have seen that one coming? And the vast majority of the revenue that the company makes now is not eligible for vat? vat is the UK sales tax and if your company earns revenue and Supply services to customers outside the UK then vat. in some circumstances doesn't apply. So the Hmrc has looked at this company and saw that it went from paying loads of tax to paying no tax. and Along Came the completely random investigation.

The short summary is this: the UK government came and murdered thousands of small businesses right across the country just like mine. Then they went and looked at those businesses and said hey, how come you stopped paying the tax after we completely you over And so over the last six weeks I have had to spend a ridiculous amount of time going over every single transaction dating back to 2019. I had to waste incredible amounts of time putting together hundreds of documents and bits of individual information because in this sort of Investigation Hmrc are determined to find something. One query I got was about a coffee machine I Think the Hmrc thought that I put a personal purchase through the books.

so I had to go and find the delivery address that happened to point to the office and I even took a photo of the machine sitting in the office kitchen. The beauty of running your own business is that you get to decide how you run it. You get to decide if you're happy trying to cheat the system or if you want to run it clean. And I have always run it whiter than white because precisely for this exact reason I knew that one day something like this is going to happen.

one day the tax man is going to come the company's house. whoever the regulator I don't know and when that day comes I would have absolutely nothing to hide and that's exactly what happened. I just handed over everything which I guess might be somewhat unusual in these circumstances, but I still had to waste two entire weekends working on the stuff from morning until late evening. On several days during this last set of six weeks, I would put my son to bed and I'll go straight back to the office and continue working until one or two am to pull this stuff together.

all because the Hmrc was wondering why is it what could possibly have happened in 2020 in the first quarter of 2020 that made me suddenly out of nowhere stopped paying them tax. But here is a little thought for the Hmrc: if you work for the Hmrc or you work for the UK Government: how do you feel about attacking small businesses in this manner? You have members of the House of Lords who have appropriated millions of pounds by stealing it during the pandemic. but hey, you don't want to go and investigate them, right? The pub landlord of a government Minister was awarded a 40 million pound contract to deliver protective equipment Boris Johnson was busy hosting parties with champagne in his garden for his mate while small businesses like mine were being thrown in the deep bangs. got to give out loans to businesses who were forced to take them because they weren't making any revenue and the UK government guaranteed the risk on those loans to the banks.

So the banks were basically given a bucket load of free money on the back of this pandemic and on the back of the small businesses who were forced to pay that interest. Everyone connected to the UK government printed money, but the small business guy. hey, they can suffer, right? Why is it that the UK Government and the UK government agencies like the Hmrc are not using all of these resources that they magically have to recoup all the money that was effectively stolen? How does the Hmrc have the time to investigate a small law-abiding business that pays them tax every quarter, but not have the resources to go after the tens of billions of pounds that were stolen in fraudulent Emergency Loan schemes? According to the times, only one percent of the Lost are stolen grant money has been recovered so far. Maybe the Hmrc could I don't know.

Take some of their staff and go after the big bucks. You know? Instead of wondering why a small business, they got completely wiped out by the UK government has stopped paying them tax after they got wiped out. The good news is that after I submitted one load of paperwork after another, after another day, Hmrc have now just come out and said that the investigation is over. Everything is good because everything in my paperwork is pristine and I Do have to say the specific person dealt with an Hmrc was great.

He was really professional, really nice to talk to, and I have absolutely no problem no Quan whatsoever with him with a team that he was part of. they were all just doing their jobs and doing them well. But this just sums up the corruption running right through the UK government. All of the mates of the UK government mates of the MPS loaded up with free money while it was being dished out right left and Center by the government without any need of proof, receipts, or anything.

But of course investigating this corruption would mean that the current prime minister who was the chancellor back then would of course be implicated. seeing his his policies were the ones that meant all of this money was lost. It would mean that the current government and the current MPS would all be implicated and probably have to serve prison time. and of course the UK courts and Hmrc have absolutely no interest whatsoever in actually Prosecuting these greedy facts and throwing them in jail where they belong because all of these people are connected and because Underneath the Veil of being fair and meritocratic and above all these other countries the UK authorities are actually corrupt as but hey, let's go and hit the small businesses ways to colossal amount of time for no reason whatsoever.

Waste a load of money to find out if the coffee machine that they bought is actually in the office or not instead of I don't know, covering the billions of pounds and passing laws to stop International companies avoiding paying tax altogether in the UK, it's a real shame, but hey, we didn't even elect the last four prime ministers in the UK. One of them was so good that she got outlasted by letters and Richie Sunak's wife was claiming to be non-domus out in the UK while living permanently in the UK with her children going to a school in the UK and her husband being a permanent MP in the UK. So she didn't pay tax because she pretended that she didn't permanently live in the UK and had the intention of immediately leaving because apparently she kept claiming that she was only in UK temporarily to claim that non-dom status even though there was clearly obviously to any sane person. no such intent.

But hey, she got to pay no tags during the pandemic while I in my business was borrowing money to pay business rates for an office that I wasn't legally allowed to go to. Makes perfect sense, right? Why investigate the obvious abuse of the tax system by the wife of the Prime Minister when you can come after this small business guy instead? Well done.