A solicitor who falsified returns to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) so as to underpay stamp duty land tax and pocket the difference in a bid to keep his firm afloat has been struck off.

Munpreet Singh Virdee was also disqualified from acting as a company director for six years.

Virdee was a director and the Compliance Officer for Finance and Administration of the west London firm of Reemans Solicitors, which was wound up last year.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that between 2012 and 2016 Virdee deliberately falsified the consideration figures on thirty-six stamp duty forms with the result that tax was underpaid by £312,000.

After HMRC raised questions about some of the transactions Virdee paid them £45,000 – which he took from the accounts of other clients.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority was told that he took the money because “he wanted his business to survive and that people’s livelihoods depended on it”.

In deciding that a strike-off was the only appropriate sanction, the tribunal said his conduct had made damaged clients, who were now liable for interest on their underpaid tax, and caused “significant harm to the reputation of the profession”.

The tribunal also said that: “His misconduct was deliberate, calculated, repeated and had continued over a significant period of time.

“When initially contacted by HMRC, he explained to his colleagues and to HMRC that the shortage in the payments had been made in error when he knew that was not the case.”

Virdee was ordered to pay costs of £21,752.