Shrewsbury builder jailed for £254,000 VAT fraud
A builder who made fraudulent tax claims totalling £254,000 has been jailed.
Richard Edis, 45, repeatedly forged invoices between August 2013 and August 2015.
Checks carried out by HMRC led to his arrest in December 2016, after which a search of his desk found evidence he had used templates and tip-ex to to create the faked documents.
Fraudulent invoices were confirmed with 15 businesses and suspected inflated claims were identified with a further 163 businesses.
Investigators also discovered Edis had inflated the value of the purchase invoices by moving the decimal point.
Edis, of Wytherford Road, Shrewsbury, was jailed for 27 months for VAT fraud at Birmingham Crown Court.
Confiscation proceedings to recover the stolen money will follow.