Ant Middleton and his wife Emilie have been banned as company directors for the next four years after failing to pay a £1million tax bill.
This is the latest hit for the TV adventurer and former special forces soldier who was forced to sell his Essex home due to debts amounting to £1.2m.
The ex-SAS: Who Dares Win star’s business, Sway and Starting Limited, owed more than £1m in corporation tax and VAT when it went bust in December 2022.
During the same period the Government Insolvency Service found more than £4.5m was paid into company accounts showing ‘it had enough income to pay the tax it owed in full.’
The company was originally set up in 2014, with his wife coming on board as a director in May 2019, to offer ‘media representation services’ and managed the income from his television and media work.
The mounting money troubles stem back to 2019, over five years ago. By 2022, the couple has failed to pay £300,000 in VAT, over £800,000 corporation tax and £6,000 in employee taxes.
When the company, originally known as Middleton Global, went into liquidation in 2022, the duo took out a £2.7m director’s loan and this was settled in full with a £300,000 payment at the time.
The ban will last four years.
Dave Magrath, Director of Investigation and Enforcement Services at the Insolvency Service, said in a statement: ‘Companies not paying the tax they should deprives the government of the money it needs to pay for the country’s defence services, our NHS, schools and universities, and transport systems.’
He pointed out that the Middleton’s has at their ‘legal and financial duties as directors’.
The official concluded: ‘This disqualification should serve as a deterrent to other directors that if you do not pay your taxes while directing money elsewhere, you are at risk of being banned.’
As part of repayment efforts the Essex residence they bought in 2019 for a reported £1.16m is now listed on a sales websites for £1.5m.
The companies earnings fluctuated wildly between 2014 and 2022. Per the Sun, for the first four years, its total net worth was £1,850. In 2020 it profited £821,629 and holding £807,887 in its last account.
Ant and his family of five moved to Dubai in 2023 after he claimed the UK culture ‘didn’t agree’ with him following his removal from Channel 4 series SAS over posts he made about the Black Lives Matter movement.
At the time Channel 4 said ‘it had become clear that our views and values are not aligned and we will not be working with him again.’
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Since 2021, he has hosted the spin-off series SAS Australia but – in yet another blow for the media personality – sources claimed in November that the fifth season may never come to fruition after a break down in talks between Screentime and Channel Seven in Australia.
He has remained a controversial public figure. In November he recalled to The Sun that he allowed his son to touch an electric fence in a bid to ‘teach him a lesson’.
And following Nigel Farage’s election as an MP, he threw his support behind him, labelling him a ‘true English gentleman’ and saying that his ‘voice had been silenced’.
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Metro has reached out to Ant Middleton’s representatives for comment.
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