Accounting network UHY Hacker Young partner Peter Kubik has called the new Insolvency Service taskforce targeting rogue directors as “a welcome first step but it’s not a quick fix.”
In the Autumn Budget 2025 presented by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, it was outlined that the government will allocate £25m to the Insolvency Service over a five-year period.
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The stated goal is to allow for more disqualification of company directors found to be abusing the system.
The additional funding will be directed towards creating a dedicated Abusive Phoenixism Taskforce within the Insolvency Service.
The taskforce, which will have a staff of 50, will examine cases of suspicious corporate insolvencies where directors may have used insolvency rules for personal benefit or to avoid tax obligations.
Kubik said: “This is a welcome first step but it’s not a quick fix. The problem is that The Insolvency Service has been so underfunded over the last few years that the Government’s plan to hire 50 new people for this taskforce will hardly touch the sides. The amount of tax that is avoided by rogue businesses shutting down is staggering and they act with almost complete impunity.
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By GlobalData”We gave the Insolvency Service a very strong disqualification case and we were told that they were under-resourced and could not look at it.
”What would be better is if HMRC started chasing debts earlier. Businesses and business owners should be paying their tax debts as and when they fall, and as HMRC can see this in real time, why isn’t it pursuing people as soon as they are three months overdue?”
