Miquita Oliver has reflected on declaring bankruptcy in her twenties after not paying tax for three years.
The now 40-year-old was hit with a £170,000 tax bill in 2012 and was forced to sell off personal possessions and declare herself bankrupt to repay it.
Oliver asked for press clippings from the time to discuss the experience on her Miss Me? podcast, which she presents with childhood friend Lily Allen.
“I went bankrupt when I was 27,” she began. “I have to be honest, I talk about it quite a lot but it’s seeing these press reports that I asked for... pretty upsetting and traumatising.”
She explained that she did not know enough about tax at the time.
“I knew nothing about tax, absolutely nothing. I come from parents who know nothing about tax. They didn’t think to ask me whether I was paying tax on the money that I was earning, and I was earning a lot of money. I didn’t ask. But I did have a really good accountant, it’s not his fault.”
Allen hit back: “What? It’s literally their job to pay, and put your tax money aside for you.”
“He’s a really nice guy, but I don’t know if it was his fault because I didn’t listen,” Oliver explained. “He’d be like, ‘You’ve got a VAT bill coming in of this amount. Have you saved it? Remember I told you to. You’ve got to pay that.’ And I’d be like, ‘Ok,’ and then after a while I just stopped doing that.
“I did [pay] it for about six years, and then for about three years... I don’t know how long I got away with it but I just was like, this tax and VAT stuff is starting to intimidate me and scare me and I don’t understand it so I’m just going to start not paying it and hiding from it.”
She explained the hefty bill was a combination of unpaid income tax and VAT. “He [the accountant] said: ‘This is getting really serious.’ But I [I thought], ‘I can’t deal with this, my life is going into disarray I can’t also be losing all my money.’”
She added: “I was so young. I had too much access to my money.”
Oliver was called into a “vicious” and highly “personal” meeting with officials as they decided what she would have to dispose of to pay back the sum. She was told she could get rid of her flat as she could live with her mum. Allen appeared to be unsympathetic as she said: “Well, it is quite a serious charge”, adding that Oliver couldn’t “play dumb” or “everyone would be doing it”. However, Oliver insisted that she had been ignorant, adding: “I wasn’t a criminal.”
She explained: “I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t have any advice, and I didn’t have the right advice.” The presenter broke down as she recalled being branded “grubby” and “chubby” in the press as a result.
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