A businessman who dodged £270,000 of VAT and income tax while running a successful Wolverhampton car parts shop was today beginning a 15-month jail sentence.

Balbir Baden, aged 57, cheated the taxman over two decades, claiming to be earning around £4,000-a-year while actually taking home 10 times that from Topgear Motospat, which is now set to close.

And the married father-of-two, who put his two daughters through private school and university, lied about his sales to dodge VAT, doing up to a third of his business in cash transactions to avoid declaring them.

Wolverhampton Crown Court heard that Baden set up the business, on Dudley Road, Blakenhall, in 1980. He initially did submit tax returns, but it is believed he was not sent any further ones because he was earning less than the income tax threshold.

Baden, of Wolverhampton Road East, Sedgley, failed to pay £142,657 in income tax and national insurance between 1982 and 2003.

He dodged a further £30,493 in 2003/4 by saying his earnings were £4,735 when he actually pocketed £88,615, including more than £50,000 from an insurance payout following an arson attack which destroyed stock and records at the business in 2001.

Baden admitted two charges of cheating public revenue and a further charge of evasion of income tax. He avoided a further £96,850 in VAT by failing to declare ar-ound £750,000 in cash sales.

Miss Lucy Cartwright, prosecuting, said Baden had seen “considerable success with his business, enjoying a large income of up to £40,000-a-year- on which he paid no tax.”

She said Baden had taken “dishonest inaction” by not submitting income tax forms and his VAT returns were “false and fraudulent from the outset”.

Judge Amjad Nawaz told him: “Everyone who is self employed has to be trusted and it strikes at the core of that accountability.”

Mr Ekwal Tiwana, defending, said Baden was “unsophisticated” at business management, but an “extremely hard working, industrious man and a very good provider for his family”.