HMRC Toughen Their Stance with Archial

One of Britain’s largest architecture firms, Archial, has placed itself into administration after HM Revenue and Customs toughened its stance and rejected a payments deal.

Archial called in administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) after the taxman refused to agree to a proposal to pay its debts in monthly instalments rather than one lump sum.

David Chubb and Graham Frost of PwC are now seeking a rapid sale of the business as a going concern.

It is understood that Archial, which employs more than 400 staff, including about 200 architects, owes HMRC about £4m in tax.

The group warned in August that its profits for this year would be lower as cuts in government spending caused projects to be cancelled or delayed.

It has emerged that the Aim quoted company has been negotiating with HMRC for some weeks before the tax authority issued its winding-up order.

Posted at 03:40PM Sep 23, 2010 by Marc Stenton in Insolvency  |  Comments[0]