A London accountant has been jailed for eight years for stealing £11m of income tax and VAT by manipulating both his clients’ and his own tax returns.

Christos Charalambous, 58, of Palmers Green, London, completed over 6,000 Self Assessment tax returns for clients which included fictitious expenses claims in order to increase the tax repayments due. He also understated the income he received from client fees on his personal returns and failed to register, declare and pay VAT due on his accountancy firm Charltons (not Charlatans but close enough). The total amount of repayment claimed by Charalambous on his clients’ behalf was £11,222,472.

Steve Armitt, Assistant Director of Criminal Investigation for HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), said:

“Charalambous is a thoroughly dishonest accountant who was motivated by greed. He betrayed the trust of innocent and vulnerable people to feed that greed. This deprived the nation’s public services of millions of pounds. Our aim is to pursue and prosecute those involved in this type of criminal activity and reclaim the proceeds of their crime.”